WME: WME's AI Strategy Focuses on Tech Partnerships Over CAA's Digital Vault

As Hollywood grapples with the rising threat of AI exploitation, WME is taking a different approach than its rival CAA, emphasizing technology partnerships and legislative efforts over building its own digital vault. While CAA is capturing digital likenesses and voice samples of its clients, and then using AI company Veritone to store the assets, WME is outsourcing those roles to two different AI companies. "We're not a technology company. We're not trying to be a technology company," WME Head of Strategy Chris Jacquemin told TheWrap. The agency has developed a three-pillar strategy focused on partnerships with AI companies for protection, comprehensive audits of business deals and legislative advocacy through their Government Relations Division, led by former Meta executive Matthew Kaplan. "Coming into this area, you can't really fight technology with technology - without having technology in support of what you're doing," Jacquemin said. WME conducted an audit of business deals in each of its different disciplines, from brand partnerships to film, television and books, "all through the lens of AI," and tried to determine what it needed to protect clients from, the WME executive said. "Some of the stuff is obvious. Some of the stuff is not at all obvious." Earlier this year, WME announced partnerships with AI companies Loti and Vermillio to help protect clients from unauthorized use of their identities. Loti bills itself as "online protection for public figures," with technology that allows clients to provide photos from different angles and voice recordings, which the company then uses to search for and request removal of unauthorized content online. Vermillio's Trace ID platform aims to track and authenticate images of clients, allowing them to either remove content or potentially monetize its use. "Everybody's constantly trying to innovate and stay ahead of the curve," Jacquemin said. "It's why we like this idea of third parties, where this is their sole business, to focus on these areas, and they've raised money for their businesses to focus on these areas." Alexandra Shannon of CAA (Randy Shropshire for TheWrap) The approach contrasts with CAA's strategy. In September 2023, CAA launched CAAvault, which uses technology from AI company Veritone to capture and store digital likenesses and voices. CAA is conducting the scans and initially capturing the data at a facility in Culver City, Calif., and then working with Irvine-based Veritone to store the assets. Earlier this month, CAA's head of Strategic Development Alexandra Shannon explained at TheWrap's Grill conference that the vault "is focused on enabling our artists, our talent, to capture their digital likeness and their voice and be able to own that so our clients, who have gone through the vault, own their authorized, authenticated version of themselves... They're in control of it. We've created permissions around who can use it and how." Not everyone in Hollywood shares the agencies' embrace of AI technology. At TheWrap's Grill conference, actor and filmmaker Justine Bateman warned that AI "will burn down the business ." She founded Credo23, the 2025 film festival that won't allow movies that use AI to be submitted. On the legislative front, WME has thrown its support behind the No Fakes Act, the first bipartisan federal bill aimed at protecting artists from AI misuse. The MPA and SAG-AFTRA are also among the groups that have hired lobbyists to work on the legislation on Capitol Hill, with each taking decidedly different stances on how broad the legislation should be. "We view technology as a complement, not a substitute, for human artistry," WME Co-Chairman Christian Muirhead said in a statement. "Guardrails must be put into place that ensure continued innovation while protecting our clients' name, image, likeness, and voice." Christian Muirhead (L) and Richard Weitz, co-Chairmen, WME (Photo by Stewart Cook/Getty Images for WME) The No Fakes Act would hold individuals or companies liable for damages for producing, hosting, or sharing a digital replica of an individual performing in an "audiovisual work, image, or sound recording that the individual never actually appeared in or otherwise approved - including digital replicas created by generative artificial intelligence (AI)," according to a statement from U.S. Senators Chris Coons, Marsha Blackburn, Amy Klobuchar and Thom Tillis. Jacquemin revealed that WME's tech partners are also tackling the emerging challenge of "contributory data," where an actor's likeness data might be used as part of an AI-generated character without creating an exact duplicate. "It might not look exactly like a particular actor, but their data, their name and likeness data was used as a percentage of the composition of that digital twin, or digital assets or digital character," Jacquemin said. "Just because it doesn't directly look like, and is an exacting duplicate of somebody, doesn't mean that they shouldn't be compensated if their data is being used in part." "I would say it's an educational process that everybody's going through," Jacquemin added. "There was initial resistance or concern or fear around it, and then there's intrigue about the potential unlock of efficiencies or new opportunities because of the tools." The agency is also exploring how AI can enhance creative processes. "On the writing and directing side, there's a number of clients that are looking at the technology as a tool to help them during that creative phase," Jacquemin said. "It could be building out pitch materials for a project that they have, or helping to frame up an outline of a project they're looking to write or create. There's a lot of what we would describe as kind of like co-pilot tools that are existing in somebody's work stream. It's not meant to be a replacement at all, but really in a way to augment what they're creatively trying to pursue." Jacquemin added that the development of AI is "moving so fast," ratcheting up the challenges for agencies. "Early on, you could pretty much tell visually or audibly if something seemed like a deepfake," he said. "Now it's getting so good, it's not possible to detect as a human. There's absolutely no standards in the space whatsoever. No standard protocol for watermarking, no standard protocol for any grave accountability within the AI models as to how they are being responsible for and managing responsibility around protecting for deepfakes and misuse of intellectual property." Despite the challenges and ongoing debates about AI's role in entertainment, Jacquemin sees its integration as inevitable. "This feels like a continuation or evolution of technology," he said. "This is not something that we can stop and put back in the bottle. AI is here. It's going to have an effect on every single industry, well beyond entertainment. Our view is we need to be vigilant in protection, and we need to embrace innovation, and it has to be done responsibly." The post WME's AI Strategy Focuses on Tech Partnerships Over CAA's Digital Vault appeared first on TheWrap .