Business

AI clones turn celeb likeness into a new business

By Sohail Khan 2 October 2026, 12:51 pm

Benchmarks
Nifty22,421.95-198.5

FEATURED FUNDS★★★★★

Motilal Oswal Midcap Fund Direct-Growth

5Y Return
19.6 %

Invest Now

Enter search text:

Business News›AI›AI Insights›AI clones are turning celebrity likeness into a new business

Read Today's Paper

AI clones are turning celebrity likeness into a new business
Synopsis

Studio Blo is developing a platform for celebrities to license their digital likenesses for advertising purposes. This platform allows brands to use celebrity clones without requiring their physical presence at shoots. The company emphasises consent, ownership, and traceability in its cloning process.

Dipankar Mukherjee, Co-Founder & CEO, Studio Blo<br><br> — Dipankar Mukherjee, Co-Founder & CEO, Studio Blo

For celebrities, time has always been the most expensive part of any endorsement. A brand wants the star, the star wants to protect their time, and everyone ends up trying to fit a shoot into an already-packed calendar.

With artificial intelligence (AI), this could change.

Studio Blo, an India-based AI-native filmmaking studio, is building celebrity clones that allow actors and athletes to license their digital likenesses — AI-generated replicas of their faces, voice, and appearance — to brands without physically turning up for every shoot.

The company, founded by Dipankar Mukherjee, Joel James and Rishabh Suri, has built FAIMOUS, an ethical celebrity-cloning platform focused on consent, ownership and traceability. Studio Blo said they have created a digital clone of cricketer Hardik Pandya and brought together women cricketers of the IPL franchise Mumbai Indians using AI cloning in a single campaign.

How does it work? Instead of a celebrity spending a day shooting an ad, their digital clone can do the work. The celebrity retains ownership of the likeness, while brands get access to the clone for an agreed period.

“We are very clear that ownership does not belong to us,” Mukherjee, CEO and co-founder, Studio Blo, told ET AI. “At any given time, the ownership is in the hands of the celebrity.”

Also Read: Hollywood, Bollywood and AI: Who controls storytelling now?

With FAIMOUS, a celebrity or their team gets a dashboard, and brands and agencies that have paid for access get another. A brand can generate content featuring the celebrity, but it cannot download and publish until the celebrity approves it.

Mukherjee said the company also embeds traceable watermarks and signatures into generated assets, with identifiers unique to each celebrity and individual asset. This is to make the content trackable and different from celebrity deepfakes.

Tackling deepfakes is critical as they have become prevalent on social media. In February 2026, the government amended the IT Rules to address harms from synthetically generated information, including deepfakes and AI-generated content.

In an August 6 release, the government said the rules also prohibit users from sharing content that impersonates others, including through AI. It added that the timeline for intermediaries to remove unlawful information after a valid government or court intimation has been reduced to three hours.

Studio Blo helps celebrities detect deepfakes, Mukherjee added, although taking them down is the responsibility of their legal teams.

Also Read: Govt amends IT rules, with focus on AI content

From deepfakes to digital talent

As celebrities grapple with unauthorised uses of their faces and voices, Studio Blo sensed this as an opportunity to turn the problem into a controlled commercial product.

The company claims to have worked on cloning-as-a-service projects with the likes of Hrithik Roshan, Ayushmann Khurrana, Shraddha Kapoor and Samay Raina.

The company is looking beyond providing cloning technology. “We are slowly transforming into a digital talent management agency,” Mukherjee said.

The idea is that a celebrity’s face, voice and performance could become a licensable digital asset, with brands paying for access under clearly defined terms.

Studio Blo also sees a potential business in building entertainment IP around celebrities.

“If you are a pro athlete, there is no stopping you from becoming a cultural icon as an animated superhero,” Mukherjee said. “Because the audience would love to see you like that.”

Cost of a digital celebrity

The economics of celebrity clones are still being worked out. According to Mukherjee, the technology itself has a per-use cost in line with leading AI platforms. The bigger question is how celebrities price the commercial use of their likeness.

There are currently two schools of thought, he said.

“One is that a celebrity says, ‘If you use my clone, you have more time with me. So, you should pay me the same amount of money I charge you,’” Mukherjee said.

The other view is that an AI clone should cost less because the celebrity is not physically shooting the campaign. Mukherjee expects the market to move in the opposite direction.

“I think in the next six months, you will see AI clones being sold at a premium,” he said.

Also Read: VerSe bets on SparkStation to make AI video cheaper and more consistent

His reasoning is that a brand can potentially use the likeness for much longer without taking up the celebrity’s physical time.

“Even if you shoot it, you end up doing a lot of post-production work,” he said. “You're shooting a celebrity against a green screen and then making it look like they are standing next to a waterfall.”

With AI, he argues, much of that work can be done without putting the celebrity on a set.

The pricing could, therefore, shift from paying for a celebrity’s time to paying for access to their likeness.

Keeping it real

Digital cloning comes with a unique problem. The celebrities often change their appearance and that forces companies like Studio Blo to create a new dataset.

Studio Blo said its cloning process can start with footage captured on an iPhone from different angles, which is then used to train an AI model.

However, as per Mukherjee, if a celebrity changes their hairstyle or appearance, the new dataset created helps keep the synthetic version aligned with the real person’s current appearance.

AI is supposed to disappear

Celebrity cloning is only one part of Studio Blo’s larger AI filmmaking business.

The company is working with filmmakers including Shekhar Kapur, Rajkumar Hirani and others on long-form projects, and wants to treat AI as a filmmaking tool rather than the filmmaker itself.

“AI is just an execution tool,” Mukherjee said. “I would say 100% of it is human.” He argues that the important human contribution is not simply operating a camera or editing software, but deciding what the film is trying to say.

“The human role is to play as a provider of intent and a purveyor of taste,” he said.

Studio Blo said it still uses writers, directors, cinematographers, production designers and other creative professionals in the filmmaking process. Mukherjee said the pre-production stage can involve three to four months of work before a single shot is created.

“You can't take the human out of the loop,” he said.

Add as a Reliable and Trusted News Source
Add Now!

Enter search text:

Continue reading with one of these options:
Limited Access
Free
Login to get access to some exclusive stories

& personalised newsletters
Login Now

Unlimited Access
Starting @ Rs120/month
Get access to exclusive stories, expert opinions &

in-depth stock reports
Subscribe Now

Unlock Access to All Exclusives with ETPrime FREE TRIAL

15 Days Free: Unlock All ETPrime Exclusives, Market Tools & ePapers

Trial offer expiring in00 : 05 : 00

I'd rather pay ₹2599 now

Uh-oh! This is an exclusive story available for selected readers only.

Worry not. You’re just a step away.

Prime Account Detected!

It seems like you're already an ETPrime member with

Log out of your current logged-in account and log in again using your ET Prime credentials to enjoy all member benefits.

Unlock ETPrime's Exclusive Stories Today!

Subscribe to gain powerful insights on business, stock market and industry trends.

Big Price Drop! Flat 40% Off

Student Only Offer

Already a Member? Sign In now

Already a Member? Sign In now
Already a Member? Sign In now

Offer Exclusively For You

Save up to Rs. 700/-

ON ET PRIME MEMBERSHIP

Avail Offer

Offer Exclusively For You

Get 1 Year Free

With 1 and 2-Year ET prime membership

Avail Offer

Offer Exclusively For You

Get 1 Year Free

With 1 and 2-Year ET prime membership

Avail Offer

Offer Exclusively For You

Get Flat 40% Off

Then ₹ 1749 for 1 year

Avail Offer

Offer Exclusively For You

ET Prime at ₹ 49 for 1 month

Then ₹ 1749 for 1 year

Avail Offer

Special Offer

Get flat 40% off on ETPrime

Avail Offer
Avail Offer

Claim NowAlready a Member? Sign In now

Need Assistance?

Connect with an ETPrime expert for personalized support and guidance

+91 9484700004

' + h3 + '

' + h4 + '

' + listing + '

What’s Included with

ETPrime Membership

1Exclusive Insights That Matter

Uncover the truth with our investigative stories

Make strategic moves using the real-world case studies

Read industry-specific stories to identify emerging trends

Spot opportunities with in-depth insights that matter

Trump temper on H-1B visas is forcing Indians to do these things to stay put in US

What Adani’s US indictment means for India Inc’s overseas fundraising
Why veterans like Reliance, L&T are on acquisition spree? Aswath Damodaran has an answer.

Will China’s dollar bond sale in Saudi Arabia trump the US in financial world?
Huawei launches its own OS to compete with Google and Apple. But can it win beyond China?

The problem with lab grown diamonds
Why a falling rupee is a better option for the economy

A list of top 20 momentum stocks that have delivered massive returns in one year