Is Your Brand Ready for Deepfake Videos?

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Today’s Question: Is your brand ready for deepfake videos?

I did a fair amount of crisis communications planning early in my career. Basically, you envision different scenarios of what could go wrong, then put strategies in place for how the organization will react. Then, you hope none of it actually happens.

Never did I imagine a day in which brands would be planning for deepfake videos of executives doing and saying things that never happened in real life.

But, here we are.

Artificial intelligence has made it possible—and, with the right resources, relatively easy—to create fake videos of people that appear and sound very real.

According to Siwei Lyu, who works for the Defense Department developing software to detect and prevent the spread of deepfakes, "It only takes about 500 images or 10 seconds of video to create a realistic deepfake.”

That means all those social media photos and YouTube videos your company shares could be used against your brand.

So, next time you meet with the PR team to talk crisis communications, make sure to put deepfake videos on the agenda.

For more, check out Wait, is that video real? The race against deepfakes and dangers of manipulated recordings by Dalvin Brown in USA Today.

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