Deepfakes-as-a-Service: Pixels and personas

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  Quantumrun Foresight
• February 10, 2025

Insight summary

Deepfakes-as-a-Service (DFaaS) offers lifelike avatars for virtual interactions, advertising, movies, and e-commerce. While this technology enhances accessibility and reduces production costs, it also raises ethical concerns about misuse in scams, misinformation, and identity theft. Governments and businesses may need to adapt through policies, detection tools, and education to navigate the growing impact of this rapidly advancing trend.

Deepfakes-as-a-Service context

DFaaS offers services that create highly realistic synthetic content for various applications. Tencent Cloud, a Chinese multimedia and technology company, introduced DFaaS in 2023, allowing users to generate high-definition digital humans with just three minutes of video and 100 sentences of speech for USD $145. These creations, available within 24 hours, can be tailored for livestreams, advertising, and interactive content, using deep learning and neural networks to produce nuanced expressions and natural speech. Such services have made sophisticated deepfake technology accessible to businesses and individuals, opening doors to innovative marketing approaches but also raising ethical and regulatory concerns.

The growing interest in DFaaS has been fueled by advancements in machine learning, particularly generative adversarial networks (GANs), which drive more realistic and scalable deepfake solutions. For instance, Tencent’s platform offers five customizable styles, including 3D realistic and cartoon digital humans, catering to industries like e-commerce and corporate training. Other tools, such as DeepFaceLab, contribute to over 95% of deepfakes created. Despite these innovations, misuse persists, with deepfake scams like a USD $25.5 million fraud in Hong Kong highlighting the need for improved detection and preventative measures.

North America and China are leading in the adoption and regulation of DFaaS. In 2023, North America captured over 38.5% of the global deepfake market share, generating USD $211.7 million, driven by media and entertainment industries leveraging this technology for creative content. Simultaneously, Chinese regulators, such as the Cyberspace Administration of China, enacted rules to prevent misuse by mandating transparency and accountability in deepfake content. With the market expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 42.5% to USD $18.9 billion by 2033, DFaaS demonstrates the dual-edged nature of technological progress

Disruptive impact

Digital humans could enable people to create personalized avatars for virtual interactions, enhancing accessibility and representation in online spaces. For instance, someone with limited mobility could use a lifelike digital version of themselves to attend virtual meetings or social events. However, deepfakes also pose privacy threats, such as identity theft or misuse of a person’s likeness in fraudulent activities. Awareness and education about spotting manipulated content may become essential for protecting personal reputations and ensuring informed online engagement.

For businesses, deepfake services could reshape marketing, training, and customer engagement strategies. Companies may use digital humans to personalize interactions, such as having customer service agents tailored to reflect brand identity. The entertainment industry could adopt deepfake technology to reduce production costs, creating virtual actors for advertisements or films without hiring talent for every scene. However, businesses may also face challenges, including potential reputational damage if the technology is misused or seen as unethical. Firms may invest in deepfake detection tools or implement policies to ensure transparency when using artificial intelligence for content creation.

Meanwhile, governments may need to address the challenges of deepfake technology through policy, investment, and education initiatives. Regulations could focus on labeling deepfake content to prevent misinformation or fraud, similar to China’s current laws requiring clear identification of altered media. Additionally, governments may allocate resources to develop detection technologies and educate citizens about the risks of synthetic content. Countries may also collaborate to establish standards for ethical deepfake use, particularly in diplomacy or military applications. 

Implications of Deepfakes-as-a-Service

Wider implications of DFaaS may include: 

• Media outlets adopting deepfake tools to recreate historical figures for educational documentaries, providing more engaging ways to learn history.
• Consumers facing challenges in verifying the authenticity of video content, leading to increased demand for fact-checking platforms.
• Companies reducing their reliance on live actors for commercials by using digital humans, significantly lowering production costs in advertising.
• Governments allocating funding to AI research focused on detecting manipulated content, enhancing national security against digital misinformation.
• The entertainment industry leveraging deepfake technology to allow deceased actors to "appear" in new movies, creating debates around ethical content ownership.
• Labor markets shifting as new roles emerge to manage and regulate synthetic content creation while traditional media jobs decline.
• The spread of personalized AI-driven digital teachers improving access to education in remote and underserved areas.
• Political campaigns integrating lifelike digital candidates into outreach strategies, blurring the lines between real and virtual public figures.
• Deepfake tools enabling hyper-localized advertising that reflects specific cultural or demographic nuances, improving targeted marketing strategies.
• Social platforms implementing stricter verification processes for user-generated content to reduce the spread of fake media, potentially affecting user engagement.

Questions to consider

• How might deepfake technology change the way you consume and trust online content in your daily life?
• What opportunities could digital humans create to improve accessibility and inclusion in your community?