Celebrities Use AI to Take Control of Their Own Images

Now celebrities are attempting to co-opt this AI craze. They are making deals with brands to put AI-created duplicates of themselves into marketing campaigns—giving them more control over their own likenesses and more latitude in the types of deals they can make. Brands, meanwhile, can use digital duplicates in ways they never could use the stars themselves—such as changing the stars’ appearance to de-age them, having them perform feats the real celebrities never could and holding spontaneous conversations with customers.

Celebrities “get paid, but they don’t have to turn up,” says Tom Graham, chief executive of AI startup Metaphysic. Stars just need to spend a few minutes in a studio with a 3-D scanner, which can then create representations of them for countless hours of content.

Last year, for instance, Puma launched a new product line at New York Fashion week with the help of international soccer star Neymar—who appeared at the event as an AI-generated 3-D avatar created with the MetaHuman app, part of Epic Games’ Unreal Engine suite, which was originally designed to create lifelike characters for videogames. The avatar showed off Puma’s new fashions on-screen during a virtual event coinciding with the brand’s runway show.

Puma can use Neymar’s digital double in a number of settings for the duration of its contract with the star, says Adam Petrick, Puma’s chief brand officer; his likeness had previously appeared in a 2021 campaign in game platform Fortnite.

Sport and cinema

Celebrity partnerships with brands are big business; Nike, for one, was due to pay athletes, teams and leagues $1.3 billion in endorsement deals in the fiscal year that ended on May 31.

In some of these deals, celebrities have traditionally signed away some degree of control over their likenesses and the marketing content created to their brand partners.

But the rise of virtual duplicates could permanently change how celebrities deal with brands. In part, stars can appear in ways they never could before. In 2021, Metaphysic used AI to create an approximation of former NFL star Deion Sanders, as he appeared on the night of the 1989 NFL draft, for an ad promoting Procter & Gamble’s Gillette razor brand. Sanders was paid for the project, and consulted on it. Golf legend Jack Nicklaus recently agreed with AI company Soul Machines to create an AI-powered version of himself at the peak of his career, when he was 38 years old. Nicklaus is currently 83.

“In a digital sense, they are alive: They can connect emotionally; they can entertain; they can interact in real time,” says Soul Machines CEO Greg Cross. “This is the future of marketing.”

Meanwhile, Hollywood talent agency CAA has joined with Metaphysic, Soul Machines and other AI companies to “fully understand what’s happening and give our clients the best advice on how they can use [AI] to advance their careers and the various methods they can undertake to protect themselves,” says Hilary Krane, CAA’s chief legal officer.

Some Hollywood deals are already emerging. Metaphysic, for instance, has signed on to provide AI services for a forthcoming Robert Zemeckis film starring Tom Hanks. (Metaphysic may be best-known for its unofficial work involving another movie star: the viral TikTok account @DeepTomCruise, in which an actor impersonates the celebrity with the help of generative AI tools. The account isn’t affiliated with Cruise, Metaphysic says; a spokeswoman for Cruise declined to comment.)

On the catwalk

Fashion models, who don’t historically own the rights to their own images, have also begun exploring ways to more actively manage their digital identities. Supermodel Eva Herzigova in April unveiled a virtual version of herself—also created on the Epic Games platform—that can walk the runway in online fashion shows. Ownership of the virtual version also rests with her and her agency, rather than with a brand or a photography studio.

“It’s an extension of her brand in many ways that opens up new opportunities for her to creatively engage with brand partnerships or creative briefs,” says Simon Windsor, co-founder and co-chief executive of virtual production company Dimension Studio, which led the project.

Fashion and beauty brands are currently in talks to use Herzigova’s digital double in their marketing campaigns, says Gavin Myall, chief executive and co-owner of Unsigned Group, the agency that represents Herzigova. The facsimile, which mimics her gait and mannerisms, will soon appear on an e-commerce site to showcase various outfits for shoppers, he says.

“It’s a really fascinating journey, as confusing as it is exciting,” says Herzigova in an emailed statement.

Marketers also anticipate consumers increasingly will be able to interact with the digital doubles. Soul Machines has already created interactive doubles for several celebrities. As of last month, fans of former NBA star Carmelo Anthony could follow his autonomous digital personality on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube. “Digital Melo” will respond to users’ questions and promote the off-court activities of Anthony, who co-founded a private-equity fund after his retirement.

Japanese golf fans will soon be able to interact with “Digital Jack,” the AI-driven depiction of a 38-year-old Nicklaus, through a partnership between Nicklaus Cos. and a Japanese golf brand, says Soul Machines’ Cross. Customers should be able to go to the company website to ask him—in Japanese—anything about his career or golf in general.

New liabilities

But the use of open-ended large-language models like ChatGPT bring new reputational risks, says Erica Rogers, an intellectual-property attorney at law firm Ward & Smith.

“From a brand’s perspective, what you’re really concerned about is a lack of control” with digital celebrities that conduct AI-generated conversations, she says. “Is the benefit worth the risk?”

The algorithms powering digital versions of Anthony, Nicklaus and K-pop star Mark Tuan draw on hundreds of hours of interviews to mimic their vocal affectations and determine how they might respond to a given question, Cross says. Soul Machines takes steps to ensure that its AI celebrities stay on-message and don’t make crude or potentially offensive remarks, according to Cross. In the case of Jack Nicklaus, for example, the company created its own large-language model rather than using existing tools such as ChatGPT, he says.

Determining legal ownership of AI-generated likenesses is another concern, Rogers says. The tech, marketing and entertainment industries must eventually develop some form of standard verification to protect both celebrities and consumers who may be fooled by deepfakes, she says.

Startup Human & Digital (Hand) has been developing a so-called talent ID, which is essentially a unique string of numbers assigned to a given person’s likeness, to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate uses, says Chief Executive Will Kreth.

In April, Graham of Metaphysic attempted to address this point by applying for what he says would be the first copyright for an AI-generated likeness: his own.

“In the next couple of years, it will be possible for regular people to create a photorealistic version of somebody else. Our laws, regulations, etc., don’t really accommodate this new possibility,” he says. Clearer ownership standards like copyrights would allow both celebrities and average citizens to more easily file takedown requests or legal actions if their likenesses are used without their permission, says Graham.

And there is, of course, the issue of confusion. Some consumers will inevitably mistake the virtual versions of celebrities for real images or videos of those individuals, and that fact has yet to be fully addressed, says Myall of Unsigned Group.

“I think it all needs to be discussed,” says Myall. Many people, he says, still view AI technology as “a scary new world.”

Patrick Coffee is a reporter for CMO Today in New York. He can be reached at [email protected].