AI, Voice, Likeness, and Persona: How Tomorrow’s Lawyers Will Define Ownership, Consent, and Control

Program Chair: Meeka Bondy

Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing the way voices, faces, likenesses, and personal attributes can be replicated, manipulated, commercialized, and deployed at scale—often with startling realism and increasingly high stakes. Yet as synthetic replicas become more sophisticated, the legal rules governing ownership, consent, control, monetization, and misuse remain unsettled. Copyright offers only partial answers. Right of publicity laws vary widely. Trademark, privacy, contract, and emerging biometric claims each address only fragments of a rapidly evolving commercial landscape.

In keeping with AABANY’s theme of cultivating tomorrow’s leaders today, this panel will explore why the next generation of lawyers will play a critical role in defining how these new forms of identity are owned, licensed, protected, and controlled. Panelists from media, technology, intellectual property, privacy, and business leadership will examine the legal disputes and strategic decisions emerging around AI-generated voices, digital likenesses, synthetic endorsements, and machine-created personas, while also addressing the broader question at the heart of this new frontier—when technology can replicate the self, how must the law evolve to protect it? Attendees will gain insight into one of the profession’s fastest-moving areas of uncertainty and the leadership role tomorrow’s lawyers will be called upon to play in shaping its future.

Key Takeaways:

• Attendees will understand how existing legal frameworks—including right of publicity, copyright, trademark, privacy, contract, unfair competition, and emerging biometric laws—apply imperfectly to AI-generated voices, digital likenesses, synthetic endorsements, and machine-created personas.
• Attendees will learn practical steps lawyers can use now to address synthetic media risk, including drafting clearer consent and license provisions, evaluating AI use cases involving voice or likeness, allocating risk in commercial agreements, preserving evidence of authorization, and advising clients on risk mitigation strategies.
• Attendees will explore how lawyers can lead in an unsettled area of law by helping clients make principled decisions about ownership, consent, compensation, transparency, and control before courts, legislatures, and industry norms fully catch up to the technology.