How a deepfake Tom Cruise on TikTok turned into a very real AI company

Earlier this year, videos of Tom Cruise started popping up on TikTok of the actor doing some surprisingly un-Tom-Cruise-like stuff: goofing around in an upscale men's clothing store; showing off a coin trick; growling playfully during a short rendition of Dave Matthews Band's "Crash Into Me." In one video, he bites into a lollipop and is amazed to find gum in the center. "Mmmmm," he says to the camera. How come nobody ever told me there's bubblegum? The 10 videos, which were posted between February and June, featured an artificial intelligence-generated doppelganger meant to look and sound like him.