YouTube Teams With CAA to Let Talent Identify — and Pull Down — AI Deepfakes of Themselves

variety.com:

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor In what’s being touted as the first partnership of its kind, CAA is collaborating with YouTube on a program promising to let actors, athletes and other talent fight back against AI-generated fakes uploaded to the video platform.

YouTube’s message to Hollywood is that it’s trying to be a good partner to creative industries by taking “proactive steps to build responsible AI.” Under the partnership, CAA clients, “many of whom have been impacted by recent AI innovations,” will have access to YouTube’s early-stage likeness management technology, which is designed to identify and manage AI-generated content featuring faces on YouTube “at scale,” according to the companies.

In early 2025, YouTube said, it will begin testing its newest likeness-management technology with “leading celebrity talent, including award-winning actors and top athletes from the NBA and NFL.” At this stage, the companies aren’t revealing specific names of CAA talent expected to participate in the program.

YouTube’s tool will identify unauthorized AI replicas and let talent submit requests to remove them. “Importantly, this is the first step of a larger testing effort,” YouTube said in a blog post Tuesday. “Over the next few months, we’ll announce new testing cohorts of top YouTube creators, creative professionals and other leading partners representing talent.” YouTube said the initial participants will provide “critical feedback” to help it build its detection systems and refine the controls, prior to the video platform making the technology widely available.