The hedge fund billionaire turned gubernatorial candidate wants to tax California’s ultrawealthy, regulate AI, and keep Silicon Valley happy at the same time. Good luck with that.

Arjun Neil Alim / Financial Times: Standard Chartered plans to cut nearly 8,000 back-office positions by 2030, a 15%+ reduction in support functions in hubs like Bengaluru, amid growing AI usage  —  Bill Winters says new strategy focuses on replacing ‘lower-value human capital’ in drive for ‘sustainable growth’

New York Times: Elon Musk's OpenAI loss is set to speed up the AI juggernaut amid rising opposition; the case offered a rare glimpse into tech's workings, ending with a whimper  —  Even as protests increase, the collapse of Mr. Musk's suit against OpenAI and Sam Altman will speed up the artificial intelligence juggernaut.

President Trump flew to Beijing, brought Jensen Huang along at the last minute, and left two days later, telling reporters that “something could happen” on chip exports. Nothing did. Not a single Nvidia H200 has shipped to China since Trump first authorised the sales in December 2025, and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told Bloomberg that semiconductor controls were […] The post The Nvidia H200 China deal survived the Trump-Xi summit–just not in the way anyone expected appeared first on AI News.

Costs for solar panels are expected to drop another 30% in the coming decade, helping the tech cement its lead in energy markets.

Discussion | Link

Discussion | Link

In 1945, Vannevar Bush imagined a desk-sized machine that would extend a scientist's...

PLUS: How to 3D model anything with Claude and Blender

Discussion | Link

Walmart has started asking some Spark delivery workers to deliver customers' restaurant orders. Scott Olson/Getty Images Walmart is getting into the restaurant delivery game. Some Spark delivery workers now field orders from in-store restaurants like McDonald's. It's the latest expansion for Walmart's delivery operations. Your next food delivery order might come to your door thanks to Walmart. The big-box chain began asking its Spark delivery workers at some stores to deliver restaurant orders, according to messages sent to the workers. The orders involve picking up food at restaurants inside Walmart stores, including some McDonald's and Dunkin' locations. Restaurant orders are a new frontier for Walmart's e-commerce business, which topped $150 billion in global sales for the first time last fiscal year. One in-app message viewed by Business Insider indicated that the restaurant deliveries began last Monday. Another, sent via email to a Spark worker, said that some restaurant orders would be batched for delivery with orders of Walmart merchandise. A Walmart spokesperson declined to comment, citing a quiet period ahead of the company's next earnings report on Thursday. "You may start seeing restaurant delivery offers from participating restaurants located inside Walmart stores in your area, offering more ways to earn," the email reads. The orders "may include items like meals, sides, or drinks," the message says. Besides national chains like McDonald's and Dunkin', some Walmart stores are home to regional restaurants. California-based hot dog chain Wienerschnitzel, for example, said last year that it would open restaurants at several Walmart stores in the Western US. Walmart has grown its Spark delivery network over the last several years. The company introduced the service in 2018. Spark uses Walmart's 4,600 US stores to fill orders. The service focuses on same-day deliveries of fresh produce, electronics, and other Walmart merchandise. The retailer is trying to deliver those items faster — a demand that's increasing pressure on the store workers who pick items and pack the orders. Spark workers also make deliveries for other retailers, such as Home Depot and Sur La Table. Have a tip? Contact this reporter at abitter@businessinsider.com or via encrypted messaging app Signal at 808-854-4501. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely. Read the original article on Business Insider

Zhang Peng; CFOTO/Getty Images; Alyssa Powell/BI For nearly half a century, China has been the factory floor of the world, producing everything from iPhones to cheap sweaters. While the stamp "Made in China" has been ubiquitous on consumer products, the companies assembling the goods have been relatively obscure. Now, some of China's hottest brands want you to know their names. They're moving from the background of global commerce to the center of it, competing directly for consumers in the US, Europe, and beyond. "They are already a major threat," says Nirgunan Tiruchelvam, the head of consumer and tech equity at Hong Kong-based investment advisory firm Aletheia Capital. The Fujian-province-based Luckin Coffee is testing markets long dominated by Starbucks, like New York, with app-based ordering and innovative limited-edition flavors like blood orange cold brew in America and pandan coconut latte in Southeast Asia. Fashion brands like Urban Revivo and Songmont are competing with global mid-end brands like Zara and Polène by offering lower prices. Pop Mart is transforming from a toy company to a global cultural force via their tiny, cute collectibles — most notably Labubus. This isn't the first time Chinese companies have tried to remake the global business landscape. In the 2000s, Beijing pushed some of its less sexy but state-backed industrial giants, like China National Petroleum Corporation and China Railway Construction Corp to "go out "abroad to secure resources and build infrastructure. In the 2010s, Chinese firms went on a global buying spree, snapping up everything from AMC Theatres to the Waldorf Astoria. More recently, companies like electric vehicle maker BYD and drone maker DJI proved that Chinese firms could compete globally by providing cutting-edge technology — not just lower prices. The new vanguard of Chinese brands heading out to conquer the world is attempting something harder than getting in with the lowest price or newest tech: being cool. The challenge of crafting an identity If there is one thing that Chinese brands are known for around the world, it's rock-bottom prices. The country's best-known consumer brands, Shein and Temu, have gained a following for their lightning-fast delivery times and low cost. Despite tariffs, privately held Shein was expected to double its profits last year, while revenue for Temu parent PDD Holdings grew 10% — though profits fell 12% — over the same period. Other Chinese brands trying to make the leap abroad have similarly gained attention for their value. Nowhere is this clearer than on social media, where users post unboxings of their Songmont bags, $1.99 Luckin beverages, and $1.19 Mixue ice cream. "For the price, honestly not bad at all," said Jon Barr, a New York City TikToker with 105,000 followers, after trying a $3.99 Taro milk tea and a $1.19 soft serve from fast-food chain Mixue that he said beat McDonald's. He said he would be back. Turning homemade brands into global cultural powers is also a survival tactic. China remains mired in a drawn-out economic slowdown, and its birthrate tumbled to a record low in 2025. China's consumer market, once a seemingly endless engine of growth, has become crowded and unforgiving. Relentless "involutionary" price wars are eroding margins at home. Looking abroad is necessary if these companies want to grow. Consumers are looking for something new, cool, and fresh, the country of origin is not very important. Many of these companies are set up for success from an operations standpoint: Years of surviving one of the most competitive markets in the world have made them experts in manufacturing, sales, and scaling. "China is transforming itself from a low-priced manufacturer into a producer of brands with unique personalities and storylines," said Eunkyu Lee, a marketing professor at Syracuse University. But whether they can become household names in categories where brand, identity, and perception matter is a different challenge. National identities can help to turn mere merchandise into objects of meaning and desire, building geopolitical influence through commercial means. European houses have long hung their identities on heritage, craftsmanship, and luxury, while American brands export innovation, freedom, and optimism. Some of China's neighbors have developed a national brand more recently. From the 1960s to the 2000s, Japan and South Korea moved from low-cost manufacturing to brand-led competition, à la Sony, Samsung, Nintendo, and Uniqlo. Japanese brands became synonymous with minimalism and precision. South Korean brands rode a wave of trend-driven pop culture. China is now trying to do the same, but at a faster pace and without a clear answer yet to what the defining identity is. That matters because identity is what allows brands to move from being chosen for price to being chosen for passion. Winning over global culture So far, Chinese companies appear to be taking two distinct approaches toward globalizing their brands. On the one hand, some companies are trying to soften or minimize their Chinese identity. Some of China's biggest global consumer successes, from Shein to TikTok, became internationally popular not by emphasizing their origins, but by presenting themselves as internet-native global platforms. That strategy works especially well in an online culture where hype travels faster than provenance. For younger consumers, the search for the new is constant. Brand discovery happens on TikTok, Instagram, RedNote (named Xiaohongshu in China), and other platforms. In that environment, it doesn't matter where the product is from, as long as it's hot. "They are looking for something that is new, cool, and fresh," Lee, the Syracuse professor, says. In that context, "the country of origin is not very important." Sportswear brand Li-Ning has gained visibility by sponsoring NBA players like Jimmy Butler and CJ McCollum, bringing Chinese-designed sneakers onto a global stage. That kind of cultural crossover is how brands begin to matter. Meanwhile, Pop Mart has collaborated with Disney and Sanrio's Hello Kitty, placing its characters alongside some of the most recognizable names in global pop culture. Winning attention is one thing — sustaining it is another. Many Chinese brands still rely on a familiar formula: good design, acceptable quality, lower price. That is enough to attract customers. It is not always enough to keep them. Even Pop Mart shares are already 20% lower this year amid fears it could be a one-trick pony built on Labubu. "The danger is if you try to take on these Western brands with a me-too approach instead of coming up with your own answers," Aletheia Capital's Tiruchelvam says. Pop Mart's Labubus have broken into US culture, even iconic American events like the Thanksgiving Day parade Michael Simon/Getty Images for POP MART Meanwhile, other brands — Songmont, Laopu, and the tea chain Chagee — are doubling down on Chinese aesthetics, heritage, and ritual. A growing wave of online fascination with Chinese lifestyle and aesthetics — dubbed "China-maxxing" — suggests global consumers may be more open than before to brands that foreground, rather than soften, their origins. There are signs that global players are starting to take notice. Songmont, an affordable luxury bag brand whose minimalist leather bags top out at around $800, draws inspiration from Chinese roots, with designs inspired by the roofs of a Buddhist temple and traditional kites. The 13-year-old brand has drawn the attention of LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault, who visited a Songmont shop — and bought two bags — during a September visit to Shanghai. During his trip, Arnault also visited Laopu Gold — dubbed the "Hermes of gold" in China — a jewelry shop specializing in handcrafted 24K gold pieces inspired by Chinese culture and symbolism, such as dragons and gourds. In mid-April, Gucci's owner, Kering, announced that it would acquire a minority stake in Shanghai fashion brand Icicle — a high-end label often compared to Max Mara. Both approaches can work — especially in an online culture that rewards what feels new, distinctive, and shareable. Politics can't stop personal choices There is, of course, another issue that could complicate Chinese brands' efforts to win over customers outside their home country: politics. Trade tensions have reshaped supply chains and put Chinese tech companies, such as TikTok, under scrutiny. BYD has expanded rapidly in Europe and South America, but is still locked out of the US due to prohibitively high tariffs. Tariffs have hit companies like Shein and Temu, but they haven't stopped them. Instead, these companies are adapting — localizing operations and finding ways to stay competitive. The new wave of Chinese companies attempting to crack the American and Western markets is better positioned — because they are also increasingly able to sell products as desirable cultural goods with real pricing power. And at the end of the day, policy can only slow desire for so long. Governments will probably find it difficult to stop consumers from embracing Chinese brands, Lee says, in part because "these brands are largely detached from political issues." While politics may be a short-term hurdle, long-term success will depend on whether Chinese brands can cross over from being chosen because they are cheap or a novelty to being chosen because they are desirable brands. "Success would be some of the brands achieving premium brand recognition among global consumers and being able to command a price premium," Lee says. That will take time, but the direction is clear: China has already changed how the world makes things with its ultra-efficient supply chains. Now it is trying to compete for what the world wants. Huileng Tan is a senior business reporter based in Singapore, covering markets, the economy, and commodities. Read the original article on Business Insider

Audemars Piguet launched a pocket watch collection with Swatch, and fans lost it. Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images The launch of the Audemars Piguet x Swatch collection unraveled into global chaos on Saturday. Fans had to endure long queues, fistfights, and even tear gas deployment to cop the $400 watches. Brand and watch experts said Audemars Piguet was walking a fine line with the tumult. Zerxes Wadia's Saturday morning started feeling like a side quest gone horribly wrong when he realized he was competing with a horde of relentless people, all angling for a chance to cop a watch. The Indian content creator arrived at the Phoenix Palladium mall in Mumbai at 5 a.m. to buy a piece from the viral Audemars Piguet and Swatch "Royal Pop" pocket watch collection. He found himself shoulder-to-shoulder with hundreds of people who had the same idea, all packed into a seemingly endless queue outside the Swatch store. The rush to get one of the eight colorful pocket watches, priced around $400 each, on May 16 turned really ugly, really fast. Things quickly took a chaotic turn at around 8:30 a.m., when he said people started jumping barricades, running in, and breaking a security checkpoint. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Zerxes Wadia (@zerxeswadia) Because access to the mall had been restricted, some people booked the padel and pickleball courts on-site to try to gain entry. "People were buying movie tickets to random movies to enter via the cinema," Wadia said, adding that it was fun to see the ingenuity of fans around him. But Wadia said there were scalpers and resellers in the queue, not just fans. The launch event was eventually canceled because of the chaos. He said he "walked out disappointed." Wadia was one of thousands of people stuck in snaking queues outside Swatch stores all around the world, from Singapore to New York City. Although the watch companies said the collection would remain available for "several months," fans treated it like a limited-edition drop. Swatch tried to control the chaos, saying in a press release that queues of more than 50 people would not be allowed and that sales may need to be paused. "To ensure the safety of both our customers and our staff in Swatch stores, we kindly ask you not to rush to our stores in large numbers to acquire this product," Swatch said after the launch. An Audemars Piguet spokesperson told Business Insider that given the "scale of public turnout observed in certain markets," Swatch had to delay the launch for safety reasons. A Swatch spokesperson told Business Insider that, out of a total of 220 stores where the collection was launched, problems occurred at around 20 stores because "queues of interested customers were exceptionally long," and some shopping malls were unable to handle the turnout. A collab primed for younger customers The collection is geared toward a young, aspirational consumer base. Bloomberg/Getty Images The collaboration was curated for a younger, more fun-loving, and less affluent customer base. Compared to Audemars Piguet's most popular watches — its Royal Oak line goes for more than $40,000 — the "Royal Pop" pocket watch collection rests snugly in the aspirational luxury category. The watches feature the octagonal face belonging to Audemars Piguet's iconic "Royal Oak" watch, but with funky color combinations like yellow and pink, and orange and blue. They come attached to a leather lanyard, making it a bag charm — a Gen Z-favorite accessory. Jade Rasif, a Singaporean DJ and YouTuber, posted a TikTok swapping out the Pop Mart's viral Labubu on her Hermès Birkin for a black "Royal Pop" pocket watch. Molly Frampton, a strategy director at New York-based brand consultancy Interbrand, said the collaboration is a "bold opportunity for both brands: to stretch, expand, and have a bit of fun." The collection is tailored for younger aspirational customers who are aware of Audemars Piguet's heritage, but "could not fork out thousands of pounds for one of their watches," said Vicky Bullen, the CEO of London-based branding agency Coley Porter Bell. Tear gas doesn't scream luxury The crowds triggered police action in several cities. Matthew Horwood/Getty Images In a store in Paris, French police deployed tear gas to break up the crowd. Fights broke out in a Milan store line. "Nothing says 'luxury horology' quite like police dogs and tear gas, right?" said Eugene Tutunikov, the CEO of secondhand luxury watch retailer SwissWatchExpo. "While the hype is a marketer's dream, getting pepper-sprayed isn't exactly the premium customer experience anyone is looking for when trying to buy a timepiece," he added. Tutunikov said selling an accessible watch like the "Royal Pop" collection dilutes Audemars Piguet's brand. Rolex did something similar to appeal to an aspirational customer base, but with a lower-priced product in its stable, the "Tudor," Tutunikov said. "Tudor" watches typically cost around $5,000. A higher-tier Rolex model, such as a Daytona, starts at $19,000 and can go up to $75,000, according to the California-based watch retailer Bob's Watches. If Rolex had chosen Audemars Piguet's approach, Tutunikov said it would have been akin to launching a "neon plastic Daytona." Bullen said that customers queuing for hours only to go home empty-handed would likely "have a bitter taste in their mouth toward Swatch, and possibly AP as well." Power in scarcity Queues and chaos as a brand strategy. Massimo Rosi/Getty Images Chaos can be a valuable brand-building tool in the scarcity economy, Bullen said. Scarcity has been the name of the game in recent years for collectibles such as watches, toys, blind boxes, and even Trader Joe's tote bags. In an era when consumers are on the hunt for small luxuries, companies are relying on limited-edition drops to boost their street cred — even if it means long lines and scuffles. Joshua Ganjei, the CEO of Boston-based watch retailer European Watch Company, said the commotion during Saturday's launch was unfortunate, but drove a lot of coverage toward Audemars Piguet. "I'm sure AP is quietly very pleased with how the whole thing unfolded," Ganjei said. Read the original article on Business Insider

Open source AI models are transforming enterprise AI, yet many executives underestimate how widely their teams are using them. Developers often download models from public repositories like Hugging Face, believing […] The post How to Govern AI Successfully at Enterprise Scale appeared first on BigDATAwire.

On Monday, a nine-member federal jury in Oakland, California took less than two hours to dismiss Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI and its chief executive Sam Altman. Crucially, the jury did not rule on the core claims of the case. These included whether OpenAI, the company behind the popular artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT, strayed from its founding mission and whether Altman and OpenAI’s co-founder Greg Brockman enriched themselves at the expense of a charitable purpose. It decided only that Musk had waited too long to sue in relation to his core claims about breaches of a founding contract or breach of charitable trust. A victory for Musk could have neutered OpenAI, which in turn would have probably sent shockwaves through the entire AI sector given the company’s dominant position developing the technology. Now, however, OpenAI has a clear path to take its next big step in the AI race, even though the key question at the core of the case remains unanswered: is OpenAI a nonprofit dedicated to humanity or a corporation dedicated to its shareholders? How it all started OpenAI was founded in December 2015 as a nonprofit entity – an AI research lab. Musk and a group of prominent entrepreneurs pledged US$1 billion to develop AI for the benefit of humanity, free of commercial pressure. Alongside Musk, the founding group included Altman, Brockman and computer scientist Ilya Sutskever. The organisation’s charter committed to two key principles. First, developing artificial general intelligence safely and for the benefit of all of humanity. Second, developing the technology openly, meaning it would be open source. This would allow others to use their underlying models, code, and research freely. This was the deal Musk says he signed up for. And OpenAI claims it continues to honour this deal even today, despite more than US$20 billion in revenue in 2025. Since 2015, a lot has happened. And understanding these events is key to interpreting the jury’s verdict. A very different deal By 2019, the original deal looked different. Given that training frontier AI models was extraordinarily expensive, Altman started to seek more cash. OpenAI created a capped-profit subsidiary where investors could earn up to 100 times their initial investment, with any extra money flowing back to the nonprofit parent. One of the first investors was Microsoft, which initially invested US$1 billion and more than US$13 billion over time. The nonprofit retained formal governance, the usual nonprofit rules applied, but the commercial subsidiary became the decision-maker. That same year, OpenAI released GPT-2. The model was released partially, in stages, rather than published as open source. This was the moment the “open” in OpenAI began to read differently. GPT-3 followed in 2020, and it was available only via a paid subscription. The inner workings of the model also remained secret. ChatGPT launched in November 2022, and reached 100 million users in a few days. Twelve months later, OpenAI’s nonprofit board fired Sam Altman, citing a loss of confidence in his candour. This was what the governance structure was meant for: to protect the organisation’s humanity-first mission, the board had the power to remove the chief executive. Yet, within five days, after pressure from Microsoft and the employees, Altman was back and the board was out. A new board that aligned with the commercially-driven enterprise took their seats. The mechanism built to keep OpenAI accountable to its charter was the one that lost. Whatever the “humanity claim” of the founding mission was supposed to mean, commercial interests prevailed. A sweeping reorganisation In October 2025, after nearly a year of negotiation with the attorneys general of California (where OpenAI is headquartered) and Delaware (where it is incorporated), the organisation completed a sweeping reorganisation. The nonprofit became the OpenAI Foundation, with the same mission: “to ensure artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity”. The for-profit became a public benefit corporation, called OpenAI Group PBC. Unlike a conventional corporation, it is required to advance its stated mission and consider the broader interests of all stakeholders. The OpenAI Foundation holds a 26% stake in the new public benefit corporation and retains some contractual and special shareholder governance rights. Microsoft owns 27% and the remaining 47% is owned by other investors and employees. Thus the Foundation controls the public benefit corporation in form. Yet in practice, OpenAI is now a profit-seeking enterprise with a charitable shareholder. So while a number of nonprofit governance guardrails are in place, significant deficiencies remain. The unanswered question OpenAI is now openly preparing for a public listing at the end of 2026, at an expected valuation at up to US$1 trillion, even as it defends dozens of pending lawsuits, ranging from intellectual property infringement and consumer protection claims to a wrongful death suit. This is the part the jury did not address. A verdict on a statute of limitations is a statement about timing, not purpose. It tells us when a complaint can be heard. It does not tell us whether the complaint was right. And in this particular case, it demonstrates the difficulty in relying on private individuals to enforce non-profit governance norms. Musk has said he will appeal the verdict. The appeal court will almost certainly limit itself to a narrow legal question – perhaps when a reasonable plaintiff should have understood OpenAI had changed. The larger question about whether OpenAI is a nonprofit dedicated to humanity or a corporation dedicated to its shareholders, has now been deferred indefinitely – at least in a legal context. The public, however, will no doubt make up its own mind about a company now worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Alexandra Andhov is the director of ALTeR (Center for Advancing Law and Technology Responsibly) at the University of Auckland. She received funding from the Independent Research Fund Denmark for the "PROFIT" Project (Gaps and Opportunities in Corporate Governance of Big Tech Companies) to research big tech companies. Ian Murray is a Professor of Law at the University of Western Australia, Director of the Charity Law Association of Australia and New Zealand and also a member of the Law Council of Australia’s Charity and Not-for-profits Sub-committee.

"There's a common refrain among [young] people in this world that it's easier to raise money for a startup right now than to get an internship. Which is remarkable, right?"

Discussion | Link

Google and Blackstone are working on a new AI company. Matthias Balk/picture alliance via Getty Images and Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images Google and Blackstone announced a new AI company to challenge CoreWeave and Nebius. The new AI company will leverage Google's TPUs to offer enhanced compute options for businesses. Here's what smart people are saying about the new deal. Google and Blackstone are launching a new AI company that would rival cloud providers like CoreWeave and Nebius. Blackstone, the world's biggest asset manager, will invest $5 billion in the new US-based company at the start, the firms said Monday. The company, which has not been publicly named, plans to offer data center capacity, operations, and Google Cloud's Tensor Processing Units as a service. Thomas Kurian, the CEO of Google Cloud, said in the statement that the new company gives organizations more options to access compute. "This joint venture with Blackstone helps meet growing demand for TPUs, which are optimized specifically for efficiency and performance in the AI era," Kurian said. Here's how tech analysts and investors reacted to the news: Rittenhouse Research In an X post, Rittenhouse Research, a market research and investment analysis firm, noted that most major neocloud providers — including CoreWeave, Nebius, Crusoe, and Lambda — have largely aligned themselves with Nvidia hardware, creating an opening for Google-backed TPU alternatives. The firm added that while the move could increase competition for those companies, it's ultimately a strong endorsement of the neocloud model that those firms helped establish. Gilles Drieu, former director of engineering at Google Gilles Drieu, the chief technology officer at ADT and a former engineering leader at Google, said Google and Blackstone's new TPU-based AI cloud reflects several major shifts underway in the AI infrastructure market. In an X post, he said that hyperscalers are beginning to commercialize their proprietary chips outside their own cloud platforms. Meanwhile, private capital is increasingly funding large-scale AI infrastructure projects once financed directly by Big Tech companies. Drieu also said the AI stack is becoming more vertically integrated, spanning chips, inference, and energy infrastructure. "Compute is starting to behave like a strategic supply chain," he wrote on X. Jason Kotik, portfolio manager at Rockefeller Global Investment Management "'Welcome to Hell' is the perfect way to put it," wrote Kotik, an equities portfolio manager at Rockefeller Global. "Google and Blackstone joining forces means every other AI company just got put on notice," Kotik said on X. "The big players are consolidating power fast, and the small fry are getting squeezed out." Read the original article on Business Insider

Wikimedia, Canva, The Conversation, CC BY-NC In recent months, celebrities such as Taylor Swift, Matthew McConaughey and Jeremy Clarkson have turned to trademark law to protect aspects of their identity associated with their brands. It’s a relatively new legal tactic and not yet tested in court. But celebrities are using it in an attempt to fill a gap copyright law wasn’t designed to fill. In late April 2026, Swift registered two sensory trademarks of her saying “Hey, it’s Taylor”, “Hey it’s Taylor Swift”, as well as a specific image from the Eras Tour. McConaughey has been granted registration for eight trademarks depicting his face, voice and known catchphrases. These included a three-second motion mark of him sitting in front of a Christmas tree and a sound mark of his famous “All right, all right, all right” from the movie Dazed and Confused. British TV presenter Clarkson trademarked an image of his face. This was in response to a series of fake AI social media posts in 2024 which depicted him endorsing cryptocurrency. So why are celebrities suddenly registering trademarks in a bid to protect their identity? The answer, unsurprisingly, lies with generative artificial intelligence (AI). The era of deepfakes Generative AI poses a growing threat to everyone’s identity: anyone can be the victim of a deepfake or voice clone. For celebrities, the stakes are even higher, as AI makes it easier than ever to impersonate their image, voice or likeness. Serious reputational harm or fake commercial endorsement can happen because for many celebrities, their face and voice are their brand. In the United States there are publicity rights which help to protect against unauthorised commercial use of identity. However, these are state-based, so they vary in scope and application. Australia does not have equivalent laws. For celebrities, registering trademarks provides another avenue of legal protection. And trademarks are federal, rather than state based. McConaughey said his trademarks would serve two purposes – protect his brand from unauthorised AI cloning, and provide him with future agency over the use of his voice or likeness. To understand this better, let’s unpack what trademarks are and how they differ to copyright law. The golden arches, arguably one of the most recognisable logos in the world, are trademarked by McDonald’s. Carlos Macias/Unsplash What’s the difference between trademark and copyright? A trademark is a distinctive logo, word, slogan, shape, letter, number or colour which distinguishes the identity of a brand. Who doesn’t recognise the golden arches that mark the “M” for McDonald’s? There are also non-traditional trademarks – known as “sensory marks”. These can be sounds, scents, texture or taste. All marks require registration and focus on consumer recognition of a brand and the avoidance of brand confusion. Contrast this to copyright, which applies to creative works such as books, songs, sound recordings and videos. If particular criteria are met, protection arises automatically. Traditionally, creators have relied upon copyright to protect their music, photos and videos. But the way AI works can make that tricky. Why copyright isn’t enough Although AI-generated material might be trained on pre-existing recordings, images and videos, the output usually synthesises the training material. For copyright infringement of creative works to be found, it first must be proven the defendant had access to the original work. Then, it must be determined how “substantially similar” the alleged infringement is to the original work. This involves a series of tests in court, and may involve witness testimony. There must also be a sufficient and recognisable resemblance between the work and the alleged infringement. AI can produce a deepfake or voice clone of a celebrity that may not be found to be “substantially similar” to the original work because it was synthesised from many bits and pieces. This is where copyright law struggles – the original and the AI generated work might not be similar enough to say the AI material infringed on copyright. And that’s why celebrities are turning to trademarks instead. How does trademark infringement work? Importantly, celebrities are not trademarking their voice, face or performance generally. Rather, they’re tying particular aspects of their identity to the trademark – such as key phrases, images or performance elements – because it’s integral to their brand. Trademark infringement works on a concept known as “likelihood of confusion”. This means the court will examine whether the alleged infringement is likely to cause confusion through a multi-factor test. Unlike copyright, the alleged infringement only needs to be close enough to the trademark that people might think it’s connected or endorsed by the celebrity’s brand. Now that Swift has trademarked a clip of herself saying her name, she may argue an AI-generated deepfake or voice clone that looks and sounds similar to that could confuse consumers into thinking it’s associated with her brand. As these trademarks have not yet been tested in court, it’s uncertain whether they would be upheld. We don’t yet know the extent to which phrases and performance elements can denote brand. And how much AI replication would be sufficient to infringe? Trademark owners are also required to have made use of their marks, but how do you continuously use a catchphrase? Although this is a novel tactic, trademarks are likely not a panacea to celebrity AI deepfakes or cloning. Nor will they help most people if their face or voice is cloned – after all, most of us don’t have a brand associated with our identity. This is yet another example where AI is challenging people to be creative in adapting existing laws. Wellett Potter is a member of the Copyright Society of Australia and the Asia-Pacific Copyright Association.

Discussion | Link