SAG-AFTRA has announced a deal with the artificial intelligence company Narrativ that will allow members to license their digital voice replica for use in audio ads.
Narrativ is an online marketplace where brands can use AI to create audio ads. According to the union, the company has agreed to a deal that meaningfully addresses informed consent, compensation requirements, and other protections for members.
“Not all members will be interested in taking advantage of the opportunities that licensing their digital voice replicas might offer, and that’s understandable. But for those who do, you now have a safe option,” SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director & Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said in a statement. “Narrativ has agreed to our terms, and its platform is an excellent example of how A.I. can be ethically used, by putting compensation, informed consent and control in the hands of individual performers.”
In addition to receiving Crabtree-Ireland’s stamp of approval, the agreement was also approved by the Commercials Contracts Standing Committee and the National Executive Committee.
Any performer who signs up for Narrativ can specify their ad preferences, as well as set their own rate for use of their digital voice replica. Brands must secure consent from performers for every use of their digital voice replica in an ad.
Also, for every ad generated on the site that includes a SAG-AFTRA performer, contributions will be made to the union’s health and retirement plans. That means these payments will help actors qualify for benefits, as well as support the financial security of the plans.
“This is a new frontier for digital advertising. A.I. makes the dream of every marketer possible — it gives them the tools to deliver the right message, using a voice that will resonate with the right person, at the right place and time,” Narrativ co-founder Ben Gottdiener said in a statement of his own. “Ethical A.I. use doesn’t invalidate that vision. It strengthens it. By ensuring that every person involved in the creation of that message is informed about what it contains, consents to its use and is compensated fairly, we make that vision sustainable, repeatable and real.”
This is not the first deal that SAG-AFTRA has struck with an AI company. In January, the union struck an agreement with Replica Studios regarding the use of AI digital voice replicas in video games. The union isn’t alone, either. In May, Creative Artists Agency also began working with an AI company called Veritone to store clients’ digital assets.
This latest deal, comes as SAG-AFTRA is on strike against 10 major video game companies after more than a year of negotiating a new Interactive Media Agreement — and it’s all due to AI. The union maintains that it has been unable to secure protections in its latest contract that encompass all performers, particularly motion capture performers, without loopholes related to whether an actors’ likeness is recognizable.
In a recent interview with Deadline on the picket line at Warner Bros. Games Inc, Crabtree-Ireland acknowledged the AI companies, like Replica and Narrativ, that SAG-AFTRA has struck deals with, saying that goal is to “lift up the companies that are acting responsibly and ethically, and bring the fight to the companies who aren’t.”