What to Do If a Brand Uses an AI Fake of You in an Ad

My inbox is full of creators who opened Instagram or TikTok to be sent a video on their feed of them selling a product, only they’ve never heard of that brand or product before. Instead of hiring them for a brand deal, the brand builds a fake AI version of them.

This can have real consequences for the creator. Their audience sees it and assumes they endorse the product or brand, a brand they work with sees it and thinks the creator broke exclusivity, a potential future sponsor sees it and rethinks working with them.

One fake ad can affect your reputation, existing contracts, and future deals.

Here’s what you should do if you find an unauthorized AI fake of you selling products online.

Preserve the evidence

Before you fire off an angry DM or call the brand out publicly, document what you’re seeing.

AI ads can disappear fast. Campaigns change, posts get deleted, and paid ads sometimes only run for specific audiences. Grab what you can now.

• Screenshots of the ad
• Screen recordings showing video and audio
• The URL, if there is one
• The account running the ad
• The date and time you saw it
• Captions and surrounding copy
• Any AI disclosures on the content
• Comments showing how viewers understood the ad
• Landing pages connected to the ad
• Information from an ad library, where you can find one
• Examples of the ad running on different platforms

How you preserve the evidence matters too, and a lawyer may recommend extra documentation before you contact the brand or the platform about legal consequences. Preserve enough to show what was used, where it ran, and what it told viewers, before any of it disappears.

Review the laws in your state

Right of Publicity

Many states recognize some version of a “right of publicity” or something close to it, that protects people from unauthorized commercial use of their identity, and the rules vary a lot from state to state.

California, for example, has a statute addressing the knowing use of someone’s name, voice, signature, photograph, or likeness in advertising, or in connection with selling products or services, without their consent first.

That makes the advertising context matter a ton. An AI parody of a celebrity is one thing. A realistic AI version of that celebrity recommending a specific protein powder ties their identity directly to a sale and implicates the right of publicity law.

Fake Endorsement

The FTC requires endorsements and testimonials to be truthful, not misleading, and it has spoken directly to AI avatars. Using an unauthorized celebrity avatar to speak favorably about a product can violate its Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule when a reasonable consumer would believe the celebrity actually gave that testimonial.

A brand using an obviously fictional character in an ad is one thing. A brand generating a convincing video of you saying “I’ve been using this supplement for six months and I love it,” when you never said that, is a very different problem, and it tells consumers you personally chose to put your name behind the product.

Calculate the actual harm

Creators often focus entirely on what a brand should have paid for the use. Direct compensation matters, but it’s rarely the only issue.

Say you have an exclusivity deal with Brand A in the athletic apparel category, and Brand B builds a synthetic ad showing you wearing and recommending its shoes. You never agreed to that campaign, but Brand A sees it anyway and sends you a notice for breach of contract, terminating your relationship with Brand A.

Unauthorized digital replicas can harm you in the following ways:

• Existing exclusivity commitments
• Future sponsorship opportunities
• Audience trust
• Category positioning
• The value of your endorsement
• Relationships with existing partners
• Your ability to control which products get tied to your identity

Decide what you actually want

Before you pick a response, name your objective. It might be one of these, or several at once.

• Immediate removal of the ad
• Stopping use of the ad
• Confirmation that copies and source files are deleted
• Information about where the campaign ran
• Compensation for past use
• Correction of a false endorsement
• Preserving a relationship that still has value
• Negotiating a real license going forward

A company you already have a relationship with that accidentally went past the scope of an existing creator agreement deserves a different first move than a company you have nothing to do with that scraped your videos, cloned your voice, and launched a fabricated endorsement campaign with no relationship to you at all.

Assessing what you want and the actual context is important when deciding your next steps.

Send a demand to the brand

Depending on the situation, a lawyer may contact the advertiser directly. A demand can identify the unauthorized use, explain the rights at stake, ask the company to stop using the material, request that records be preserved, ask for information about the scope of the campaign, or propose another resolution entirely.

If the ad is live in a large paid media campaign and causing real commercial harm right now, you should move fast to keep the harm from expanding.

If the disagreement comes down to ambiguous language in an existing agreement, work through the contract and the history between the parties first, rather than treating it as intentional infringement from the start and threatening lawsuits.

Use platform reporting strategically

If the ad is running through a social platform, marketplace, or ad network, you likely have reporting tools available too, on top of contacting the advertiser directly. Don’t treat a platform complaint as a reflex though. Think through the following before you file one. Important: Before you request removal, make sure you’ve preserved evidence of the fake!

• What type of right the platform’s reporting process actually covers
• What evidence the platform asks for
• Whether you’re alleging impersonation, IP infringement, deceptive content, or something else
• Whether removing one ad actually solves the bigger campaign

Know when to call a lawyer

Not every strange AI post needs a formal legal response, but the stakes go up fast in situations like these.

• The AI replica shows up directly in paid advertising
• The content realistically makes it look like you spoke or performed
• The ad falsely suggests you personally endorse the product
• The company used your voice, not just your appearance
• You had a previous contract with the brand
• The campaign conflicts with another partnership or exclusivity obligation
• The brand is putting real media spend behind the ad
• Multiple platforms, territories, or campaigns are involved
• The company keeps running it after you send notice
• The use could actually hurt your reputation or future deals

A lawyer sorts through what rights got granted, what got violated, what evidence you have, how big the campaign is, and what outcome actually makes sense, so you’re not making that call off a gut reaction alone.