• by Colin Kirkland , Yesterday

Following YouTube’s recent Google Labs AI-generated “Portraits” tests, the social video-sharing platform is now planning to bring AI-generation to Shorts, allowing creators to post videos using their likeness.

YouTube CEO Neal Mohan stated in his annual newsletter Wednesday that creators will be able to make Shorts using their “own likeness” sometime this year.

Last month, the platform announced its “Portraits” feature, which allows viewers to conversationally interact with image-based “AI representations” of real-life creators, while providing the participating creators with insights into the topics their audiences are most interested in, a YouTube announcement explains.

A YouTube spokesperson added that the platform will have more to share about Shorts utilizing creator likenesses, including an official launch date and how exactly the feature will work. 

The announcement follows the rollout of YouTube’s creator-focused likeness detection technology and the expansion of its deepfake prevention program. 

The technology has since rolled out to creators in the company’s Partner Program, promoting a new process to help them ask that AI-generated content using their likeness be removed from the platform. 

Likeness detection was designed to safeguard creators’ identities while ensuring that their audience isn’t misled, especially with regard to the brands, products and services creators are purposefully endorsing.

“In this experimental phase, the feature may display videos featuring the actual faces of enrolled creators, not altered or AI-generated,” the company’s likeness Help page explanation states. 

The idea of launching in-app virtual influencers has also been adopted by Meta, with Instagram inviting creators in 2024 to make AI versions of themselves within a designated AI studio that are able to communicate with followers via direct messaging.

At the time, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg moved beyond fan-centric use and began testing its AI agents for brand purposes, inviting small businesses to “press a few buttons and get an agent version of themselves that can do customer support and ecommerce support.”

TikTok also began to dabble with virtual influencers in 2024, expanding its Symphony AI ad suite with brand-customizable digital avatars for in-app promotions and automated dubbing for global translations.

In his letter, Mohan says that Shorts currently average 200 billion daily views and is one of YouTube’s most popular content offerings.