Yepic AI’s public promise to avoid reproducing people without their consent came under scrutiny after the startup sent a reporter two AI-generated videos featuring the reporter’s likeness. The reporter had not agreed to have their image used. The incident raises questions about how a company’s stated rules are applied when promotional outreach involves someone else’s identity.
What happened in the pitch
A Yepic AI representative included two “deepfaked” videos in an unsolicited email pitch to a TechCrunch reporter. According to the pitch, the company used a publicly available photo of the reporter to create videos showing them speaking in different languages.
The reporter asked Yepic AI to delete the videos, which had been made without permission. The source article does not establish whether the company created similar videos of other people without consent. Yepic AI declined to say whether it had done so.
The episode is notable because the company had already described limits on this kind of work. On a webpage titled “Ethics,” Yepic AI said, “Deepfakes and satirical impersonations for political and other purposed [sic] are prohibited.” An August blog post also said, “We refuse to produce custom avatars of people without their express permission.”
The company’s response
Chief executive Aaron Jones told TechCrunch that Yepic AI was updating its ethics policy to “accommodate exceptions for AI-generated images that are created for artistic and expressive purposes.” That proposed change points to a question at the heart of the incident: how should a company define acceptable exceptions to a consent rule?
Jones said neither he nor the Yepic team had been directly involved in creating the videos. He added: “Our PR team have confirmed that the video was created specifically for the journalist to generate awareness of the incredible technology Yepic has created.”
Jones also said that the videos and the image used to create the reporter’s likeness had been deleted. The account therefore includes two distinct issues: the company’s stated policy, and the actions taken by its PR team to demonstrate its technology.
Why consent matters for deepfakes
Deepfakes are photos, videos or audio made with generative AI systems to look or sound like a particular person. The source notes that the technology is not new, but that the spread of generative AI tools has made it easier for almost anyone to create convincing material depicting someone else, potentially without that person’s knowledge or agreement.
That ability changes the stakes of an ordinary promotional example. A publicly available photograph can be used as input to create a new depiction, but its availability does not by itself show that the person agreed to appear in an AI-generated video. In this case, the reporter requested deletion after learning that the videos had been made.
The source also describes harmful uses beyond promotional content. Deepfakes have been used to deceive people into scams and to obtain cryptocurrency or personal information, sometimes by evading moderation systems. In one case, fraudsters used an AI imitation of a company chief executive’s voice to persuade staff to make a fraudulent transaction worth hundreds of thousands of euros.
Another documented concern is nonconsensual sexual imagery. People have used deepfakes to make realistic-looking porn videos featuring women who did not consent to be part of them. These examples show why consent policies matter: the same broad capability to imitate a person can be used in very different contexts, with very different consequences for the person depicted.
Policies need to match practice
Yepic AI’s response leaves practical questions about how its revised ethics policy will handle artistic or expressive exceptions, and how those exceptions will be applied to promotional work. The source does not provide further details about the proposed policy or how the company will enforce it.
For people whose likenesses may be used, the incident illustrates a basic challenge of AI-generated media: a person can become the subject of a synthetic video without being asked first. For companies offering these tools, clear consent standards matter most when they shape day-to-day decisions, including choices made by teams outside product development.
In Yepic AI’s case, Jones said the material was deleted and the policy was being updated. The company’s stated commitment and the reporter’s experience now sit side by side, making consistency between written rules and actual use central to the story.