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The Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) strikes a deal with startup Narrativ, a company that deals with artificial intelligence (AI) voice replicas for advertising opportunities, marking the starting line for transparency and safety regulations in the commercial side of AI.
In a calculative and cautious effort to build camaraderie between the creative and technology industries, SAG-AFTRA, a union comprising around 160,000 actors and filmmakers from Hollywood, oversees negotiations with Narrativ to ensure that their members are protected and fairly compensated in this new digital frontier.
The deal entails the members being able to set their preferences for the types of projects they are willing to participate in and negotiate their own fees, provided they meet the union’s minimum rate for audio commercials.
Guardrails for Ethical AI Use
SAG-AFTRA explained that producers must disclose the product or service being promoted in the commercial and provide the script when offering an engagement to a performer. If the advertiser’s content doesn’t align with the performer’s preferences, they have the option to decline the offer.
“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,” said Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA’s national executive director and chief negotiator.
Crabtree-Ireland also mentions the platform as a prime example of ethical AI use by ensuring that individual performers are compensated, give informed consent, and maintain control.
Narrativ ensures that every ad created generates a pension and health contribution for the performer, adding another layer of security and transparency.
“One of the main elements that we tackled together was setting minimum prices that reflect the current audio commercials contract,” explains Narrativ co-founder Ben Gottdiener. “Add in the consent requirements— [which allow] talent to review every ad generated—and the control around the license term, [where] there’s no such thing as an indefinite license period [because] we max out at two years.”
Furthermore, they believe they have developed a platform that transforms AI into a tool that benefits talent, making them more accessible to both large and small brands by allowing their likeness to be licensed indefinitely.
A New Frontier in Digital Advertising
Sag-Aftra’s National Executive Committee has endorsed the deal, recognizing AI’s role in the future of commercial creativity.
This all happened months after SAG-AFTRA’s recent strike, the longest in its history, which saw Hollywood actors demanding better residuals agreements from streaming platforms and production companies, as well as protections against certain uses of AI and digital manipulation.
Industry experts lauded it as a significant advancement for both the labor and the advertising sectors. Dr. Shawn DuBravac, a futurist and tech writer, remarked that while there are concerns about AI potentially threatening actors’ jobs, this deal is a proactive safeguard while opening new opportunities.
Alex Persky-Stern, CEO of Waymark, an AI-powered video-generation platform, echoed these sentiments, emphasizing that the deal ensures AI acts as a creative accelerator rather than a replacement. “Generative AI is at its best when it’s opening up new creative opportunities, and this deal does exactly that: it opens new opportunities for performers to get paid and new opportunities for marketers to access professional talent,” Persky-Stern stated.
AI is set to play a more prominent role in various industries, and agreements like this one between SAG-AFTRA and Narrativ will be crucial in ensuring that technology serves the interests of all stakeholders involved. The union’s proactive approach in negotiating these terms sets a benchmark for ethical AI use in the entertainment industry and beyond.
