What marketers need to know about video deepfakes

When you hear the word "deepfake," you might instantly think of fraud, ethically questionable, or even downright unsettling videos that have bobbled across the internet over the last few years. As fake video content as well as the AI technology that powers their creation - continue to become more advanced, it is essential that creators and marketers across every industry learn what they do and the ways they can be used in order to keep ahead in the ever-changing climate.

For those who aren't familiar Deepfakes are fake media that have been created digitally and altered to alter or recreate a person's appearance convincingly. This gives them being able to make films that look and feel real yet aren't. Therefore, it's not surprising that they could be criticized for spreading misinformation or exploiting the likenesses of people.

Similar to any technology, however, it's all in how you utilize it. Innovative marketers and creatives are already using deepfake technology -- in a responsible and ethical mannertoto make new artistic forms, tell new stories, as well as improve their own videos.

In this article this article, we'll discuss some examples of the use of fake technology to good ends and useful purposes, along with suggestions about how to play around with the tech yourself.

What's a fake?

A deepfake is a video, or audio recording, of an individual whose appearance or body is digitally changed. Deepfakes make use of AI to produce a sense of likeness relying on pattern recognition to determine the tones, expressions and movement.

The other terms used to describe a fake may refer to synthetic or artificial media, as well as artificially-generated content.

 A brief history of deepfakes

The development of Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) began the trend of real-looking fakes in 2014. GANs comprise two AI agents which forge images and detect forgery, allowing the AI to develop over time.

Deepfakes can also be created using a deep learning computer network called a variational auto-encoder (VAE). VAEs can be trained to encode images in low-dimensional representations of a subject, and later decode those representations back into moving images.

The term "deepfake" wasn't coined until 2017. In the year media massed alerted the public about deepfakes - with the first viral deepfake video featuring Barack Obama and Donald Trump appearing on social networks.

But deepfakes also have uses which are getting more useful to ordinary marketers, not just hackers and internet trolls trying to spread misinformation.

How do deepfakes work?

Machine-learning AI is a crucial component of the process of making a deepfake. Deepfakes rely on this technology to spot trends in visuals and information.

To create a fake deepfake video, an artist needs to supply these machine-learning algorithms with long hours of real footage. This then trains the deep neural networks to identify tones, patterns faces, facial expressions and more. The next stage is to integrate the learnings and graphics.

It's not difficult to make a fake, simply existing videos or audio of who you're trying to imitate. While it could be difficult at first making a fake, it does not require any complicated tools, the only requirement is basic knowledge in graphic design and video editing skills.

Examples of artful video deepfakes

Marketers are still in early stages of adopting deepfakes and other AI technologies to help with video marketing and digital. The following deepfake examples don't exactly fit into a marketer's toolbox yet, but they showcase the capabilities of these AI technologies right now.

 1. Chris Shimojima's "Dolche - Big Man"

This breathtaking Staff Picked music video from the filmmaker Chris Shimojima takes deepfake technology and flips it over its head, using the faces of 14 performers (and 40 contributors) to tell a single narrative. It's an artistic and unexpected blend of technology and human expression.

 2. David Beckham's many languages

Malaria Needs to Die employed AI to influence soccer superstar David Beckham to speak in nine different languages, leveraging deepfake technology in order to create an enormous splash and markedly increase their campaign's reach.

 3. Salvador Dali's museum greeting

It took more than 1000 hours of machine learning to enable the Dali museumMuseum to arrive at their version of deep fake Salvador Dali precisely right. This is a new approach to museum visitors that gives them an opportunity to see things from a different angle: they get to learn about the art of Salvador Dali from him himself!

3 everyday uses for deepfake technology for video

While some applications of deepfakes might be out of the average marketer's reach however, there are a variety of creative and interesting ways to use the technology of deepfakes in your job.

• Correct sloppy lines within the post For anyone with only a little editing knowledge is familiar with the difficulties and frustrations of putting together edited audio clips from a casual interview. Whether your subject misspoke or did not respond in a the full length of a sentence, using deepfake technology to fill in blanks is an excellent way to keep your post-production workflow moving along with no need to reshoot. (Just ensure you have the subject's permission first obviously!)
   
  
• Customize videos for customers in a mass the scale of Marketers are able to implement simple personalization through sending welcome or product videos that include prospect's names as well as their names and company names. All you require is their names and enough audio recorded from your camera for deepfake tech to add it into any video.
   
  
• localize your videos Deepfake technology introduces an entirely new realm of simple translation. Instead of using subtitles, artificial intelligence is able to insert translated, spoken audio that is either derived from an audio bank or from the voice of the actor who recorded it.

Technology advances, and new possibilities

We may not know exactly how the next generation of AI can provide, but there is one thing that's for certain: deepfakes aren't going anywhere. Just as with other AI-powered technologies (chatGPT, anyone? ) Anyone who is who are willing to play with deepfakes while keeping their eyes open to the potential for pitfalls are well-equipped to succeed in the evolving video landscape.