No, that’s not Taylor Swift peddling Le Creuset cookware

Taylor Swift’s affinity with Le Creuset is real: her collection of cookware can be seen on a Tumblr account dedicated to the pop star’s interior design, in an in-depth analysis of her kitchen published by Variety and in a Netflix documentary highlighted by Le Creuset’s Facebook page.

What isn’t real: Ms. Swift’s endorsement of the company’s products, which in recent weeks have appeared in ads on Facebook and elsewhere featuring her face and voice.

The ads are among many celebrity-targeted scams that have been made much more convincing by artificial intelligence. Within one week in October the actor was Tom Hanksthe journalist Gayle King and the YouTube personality Mr. Beast all said AI versions of themselves had been used without permission in deceptive dental plan promotions, iPhone giveaways and other advertisements.

In Ms. Swift’s case, experts say, artificial intelligence technology helped create a synthetic version of the singer’s voice, which was spliced ​​together with footage of her alongside clips of Le Creuset Dutch ovens. In several ads, Ms. Swift’s cloned voice addressed “Swifties” — her fans — and said she was “thrilled” to be handing out free cooking supplies. All people had to do was click a button and answer a few questions before the end of the day.

Le Creuset said it was not involved with the singer for a consumer giveaway. The company urged shoppers to check official online accounts before clicking on suspicious ads. Representatives for Ms. Swift, who was named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year in 2023, did not respond to requests for comment.

Famous people have lent their celebrity to advertisers for as long as advertising has existed. Sometimes this happened reluctantly. More than three decades ago, Tom Waits sued Frito-Lay—and won nearly $2.5 million—after the corn chip company impersonated the singer in a radio commercial without his consent. Le Creuset’s scam campaign also featured fabricated versions of Martha Stewart and Oprah Winfrey, who posted in 2022 an irritated video about the prevalence of fake social media ads, emails and websites falsely claiming to endorse weight-loss gummies.

Over the past year, major advances in artificial intelligence have made it much easier to create an unauthorized digital replica of a real person. Audio spoofs are extremely easy to produce and difficult to identify, says Siwei Lyu, a computer science professor who directs the Media Forensic Lab at the University at Buffalo.

The Le Creuset scam campaign was likely created using a text-to-speech service, said Dr. Lyu. Such tools typically translate a script into an AI-generated voice, which can then be incorporated into existing video footage using lip sync programs.

“These tools are becoming very accessible today,” says Dr. Lyu, who adds that it is possible to create a “decent quality” video in less than 45 minutes. “It’s becoming very easy and that’s why we’re seeing more and more.”

Dozens of separate but similar Le Creuset scam ads featuring Ms. Swift — many of which were posted this month — were visible in Meta’s public ad library late last week. (The company owns Facebook and Instagram.) The campaign also ran on TikTok.

The ads sent viewers to websites that mimicked legitimate outlets, such as the Food Network, where fake news about Le Creuset’s offerings were shown alongside testimonials from made-up customers. Participants were asked to pay a “small shipping fee of $9.96” for the cookware. Those who complied faced hidden monthly fees without ever receiving the promised cookware.

Some fake Le Creuset ads, such as one impersonating interior designer Joanna Gaines, had a deceptive air of legitimacy on social media thanks to labels that identified them as sponsored posts or as coming from verified accounts.

In April, the Better Business Bureau warned consumers who fake celebrity scams using AI were ‘more convincing than ever’. Victims often received higher than expected charges and no trace of the product they ordered. Bankers have also reported attempts by scammers to use voice deepfakes, or synthetic replicas of real people’s voices, to commit financial fraud.

Over the past year, several well-known people have publicly distanced themselves ads with their AI-manipulated likeness or voice.

This summer, fake ads circulated online featuring country singer Luke Combs promoting weight-loss gummies recommended to him by fellow American Lainey Wilson. Mrs. Wilson posted an Instagram video denouncing the ads and saying that “people will do anything to make a dollar, even if it’s lies.” Mr. Combs’ manager, Chris Kappy, also posted an Instagram video denies involvement in the gum campaign and accuses foreign companies of using artificial intelligence to copy Mr. Combs’ likeness.

“For other managers, AI is a scary thing and they use it against us,” he wrote.

A TikTok spokesperson said the app is advertising policy requires advertisers to obtain consent for “any synthetic media that features a public figure,” adding that TikTok’s community standards require creators to “disclose synthetic or manipulated media that depicts realistic scenes.”

Meta said it was taking action against the ads that violated the rules policy, which bans content that deceptively uses public figures to extort money from users. The company said it had taken legal action against some perpetrators of such schemes, but added that malicious ads were often able to bypass Meta’s rating systems by cloaking their content.

With no federal laws in place to address AI scams, lawmakers have proposed legislation aimed at limiting their harm. Two bills introduced in Congress last year — the Deepfakes Accountability Act in the House of Representatives and the No Fakes Act in the Senate — would require guardrails such as content labels or permission to use someone’s voice or image.

At least nine states, including California, Virginia, Florida and Hawaii, have laws regulating AI-generated content.

For now, Ms. Swift will likely remain a popular subject of AI experimentation. Synthetic versions of her voice regularly pop up on TikTok, performing songs she’s never sung, colorfully chiming in on critics and serving as phone ringtones. An English-language interview she gave in 2021 on “Late Night With Seth Meyers” was dubbed with an artificial rendition of her voice speaking Mandarin. One website is charging up to $20 for personalized voice messages from “Taylor Swift’s AI clone,” promising “the voice you hear will be indistinguishable from the real thing.”