SAG-AFTRA's Interactive Media Agreement with game companies requires performers' informed consent for all planned AI use on their voice, likeness, and movements
Full text of the tentative agreement will be released June 18 for a ratification vote period that ends July 9 See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
The tentative agreement follows the end of SAG-AFTRA’s 320-plus-day game-performer strike, making AI-use terms a central condition of returning to work rather than a side provision.
It also extends a consent-first approach seen in SAG-AFTRA’s earlier Replica Studios voice-replica deal into the game-studio labor contract. The pending ratification makes the release of full terms consequential for performers and studios alike.
First-order effects
- Game companies covered by the Interactive Media Agreement must obtain performers’ informed consent for every planned AI use of their voice, likeness, or movements.
- Performers gain a contractual approval point before planned synthetic or replicated uses proceed, subject to ratification of the tentative agreement.
Second-order effects
- Studios will need to build consent, disclosure, and recordkeeping into casting, motion-capture, and asset-management workflows, rather than treating AI permissions as implied by an ordinary performance engagement.
- The agreement gives AI voice and likeness vendors a clearer contractual boundary: tools may be usable in game production, but planned use depends on documented performer authorization.
Third-order effects
- If replicated across entertainment labor agreements, consent is likely to become a baseline governance mechanism for commercial synthetic-media use, shifting control from one-time capture toward use-specific permissions.
- The durable contest will move to the details behind consent—scope, reuse, storage, and compensation—where different contracts may still produce uneven protections.
The trend: This is part of the shift from broad rights over a recorded performance toward explicit, auditable governance of each commercial AI use of a person’s identity.