Terry Crews, the actor known for “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” and a former National Football League player, first saw himself in A.I.-generated videos about four years ago, and has since watched with both astonishment and horror as artificial intelligence improved exponentially.
“There’s not a day that goes by where I am not tagged on at least 10 different A.I. versions of me doing all the things,” he said in an interview. “In a year, it’s going to be indistinguishable from reality.”
These sorts of digital likenesses, and how they could be used without consent or compensation, have spooked Hollywood, and were a central issue in the actors’ strike three years ago. In Mr. Crews’s case, they prompted him to lend his face to a new partnership between Ogilvy, the ad agency with clients like Dove and Coca-Cola, and Creative Artists Agency, the Hollywood talent firm. Its mission: to create ads that feature digital replicas of celebrities but only with their approval.
“I have to get ahead of this and show this is the stuff I approve, this is who I am,” Mr. Crews said.
Ogilvy, owned by the ad giant WPP, said on Monday that it would lean on CAA’s “vault,” a high-tech database that captures, stores and licenses the digital likeness, voice and intellectual property of clients. Marketers will be able to use a new platform called Echo to spin up ads to jump on TikTok trends or holidays, or to tailor ads to other countries, without begging stars to return to sets or record voice-overs. The A.I. content, which is likely to result in more pay for celebrities, requires the talent to sign off on the ad and will be labeled to say the celebrity both “approved” and was “recreated by A.I.”
(The companies declined to share names of clients who are participating; CAA’s roster includes stars like Tom Cruise, Margot Robbie and Sydney Sweeney.)
“Clients are in a world right now where they need more content to break through and to be contextually relevant, especially on social,” said Carol Reed, Ogilvy’s global chief innovation officer. “How can you take a brand ambassadorship where you shot something months ago and still have it be relevant today? That’s something they’re all thinking about, and the hypothesis here is A.I. should be helping.”
The tool offers a glimpse into advertisers’ appetite for using A.I. — and the shifting tides in Hollywood around the charged topic of deploying such technology in ads and entertainment. The era of cord-cutting and social media has forced marketers, once able to reach vast swaths of Americans with 30-second TV spots, to churn out ads across multiple platforms and formats that must also catch the eye of distracted consumers. But many marketers have been uncertain about whether A.I. ads would resonate with consumers or be viewed as slop.
Many stars have been frustrated with deepfakes and even with authorized A.I. use. A recent campaign from Aerie featuring Pamela Anderson pledged to “never use A.I.-generated people or bodies in its marketing.”
Often, digital replicas of people in ads are entirely fabricated or based on relative unknowns. TikTok offers advertisers a menu of digital avatars created from real people who were paid a pittance for their likenesses. Vogue, a premier destination for models, made waves last year for featuring a fully A.I. model in advertisements for the Guess brand.
Mr. Crews, a CAA client who has been a pitchman for Old Spice and is the host of “Battle of the Streaming Stars” on Roku, said he was eager to be a “guinea pig.” This summer, Ogilvy used a digital replica of Mr. Crews for a video the agency privately shared with clients to promote its venture.
“I’m ready to face any backlash,” he said.
Alex Shannon, CAA’s head of strategic development, said she had observed an “evolution” in how celebrities viewed A.I., as they sought control and compensation around its use. Echo will automatically check A.I. ads against brand and talent terms — for example, Mr. Crews doesn’t endorse alcohol or gambling.
“The biggest myth is that all artists are anti-A.I.,” Ms. Shannon said. “They’re not necessarily against the technology — what they’re against is unauthorized use or lack of the ability to consent. That’s the piece we’re very much trying to solve for.”
Kristin Patrick, a former chief marketing officer of Marc Jacobs and Claire’s, said A.I. could “change the equation” with celebrity ad deals, but predicted that stars would be “selectively” interested.
“Their identity is their most valuable asset,” she said. “The real question isn’t whether they’re going to embrace this. It’s how much control they’re willing to give up and whether the economics of them doing it justifies it.”
It’s not clear how such ads will land. Ogilvy said its research showed that labels with “explicit talent approval” boosted ad appeal with consumers beyond generic “made with A.I.” disclosures.
A test will come this holiday season, when ads made through Echo will first appear.
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