Some People Actually Kind of Love Deepfakes

A month ago, the consulting company Accenture presented a potential client an unusual and attention-grabbing pitch for a new project. Instead of the usual slide deck, the client saw deepfakes of several real employees standing on a virtual stage, offering perfectly delivered descriptions of the project they hoped to work on. "I wanted them to meet our team," says Renato Scaff, a senior managing director at Accenture who came up with the idea. "It's also a way for us to differentiate ourselves from the competition." The deepfakes were generated--with employees' consent--by Touchcast, a company Accenture has invested in that offers a platform for interactive presentations featuring avatars of real or synthetic people.