How to Create Your Own Avatar on YouTube

YouTube is leaning further into artificial intelligence with the rollout of a new AI Avatar feature, allowing creators to generate digital versions of themselves that look and sound just like the real thing.

The technology behind these avatars relies on a secure “live selfie” capture process. To build your digital twin, you must record your face and voice directly through the YouTube or YouTube Create app. Once set up, the avatar can be used to generate original videos based on simple text prompts.

For example, a creator could prompt their avatar to say, “I am flying high in the sky!” and the system will generate a clip of the avatar performing that action.

To create your avatar from the YouTube app:

1. Sign in to the YouTube app on your mobile device.
2. Tap Create and then tap from the top right corner to open AI playground.
3. Tap Create video and then Make a video with my avatar.
4. Follow the on-screen prompts to record your selfie and voice.
5. Preview your avatar. Tap Next to use the avatar, or Retake to record again.
6. Once your avatar is complete, type a prompt to generate a video with your avatar, such as “I am flying high in the sky, up above the clouds saying I can fly!”
7. Tap to generate.

While the AI-generated clips are currently limited to eight-second segments, users can stitch multiple clips together for longer content. This feature is currently rolling out gradually.