Equity, the performing arts and entertainment trade union, is pressing for AI protections in film and television and for personality rights for everyone, as the first anniversary of AI-generated avatar performer Tilly Norwood approaches.
Tilly Norwood was launched at the Zurich Film Festival on 27 September 2025. Equity said the so-called AI actress shocked many in the acting community and hardened the union’s push for explicit industrial safeguards for performers, alongside wider controls over people’s voice and likeness.
The union, which represents around 50,000 performers and creative practitioners, said it is close to securing the first automatic AI protections for film and TV performers. Those would cover transparency, consent and remuneration, and would sit alongside an industry commitment to strongly prefer human performance. Talks with Pact, the Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television, are at an advanced stage.
Alongside that industrial work, Equity is calling for personality rights over voice and likeness for everyone — a legal layer it argues would help people control their identity in the age of AI, curb exploitation by models without consent, and reduce the risk of malicious digital replicas undermining democratic processes.
Fleming: ‘Permission and payment of performers must be central’
Paul W Fleming, Equity general secretary, said collective agreements remain the union’s strongest route to embed minimum standards across film and TV.
"Equity’s collective agreements are incredibly powerful vehicles to embed minimum standards across the industries our members work in. We will ensure that contracts for film and TV work in the UK include mandatory protections regarding AI, ensuring the permission and payment of performers for their voice or likeness is central.
"There is something fundamentally human about performance art and entertainment. This industry relies on the unique and compelling performances created by professionals, and that will not change. The exploitation of this precarious workforce is also not new, so Equity will pursue protections and minimum standards that performers can rely on in every sector of the entertainment industry."
Fleming: ‘Urge Andy Burnham’s government to introduce personality rights’
Fleming also urged Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s government to legislate for personality rights across society, not only for performers covered by Equity agreements.
"Alongside protections for performers, Equity wants the government to introduce personality rights to benefit everyone across society. Unauthorised, malicious, and sexualised generative AI digital replicas are a threat to our democracy, decency and wellbeing. Legal personality rights are the answer to this, and we strongly urge Andy Burnham’s government to grasp the moment and move swiftly to introduce them.
"If we act collectively as an industry – including casting platforms rejecting AI use which reduces artists’ work, producers committing to human performance, and workers standing together to negotiate, AI can serve the creative workforce rather than the other way round."
Equity’s campaign material is at Stop AI Stealing the Show.
