Advertising group Ogilvy has launched ECHO, a new AI platform that turns a single celebrity photo shoot into dozens of localised advertisements — but only with the star's permission. The platform, announced on Monday 9 November 2026, is built around licensed digital likenesses and requires talent approval before any ad can be published.

ECHO was developed with Hollywood talent agency Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and is powered by WPP Open, the marketing platform of Ogilvy's parent company WPP. It is commercially available across the WPP network from November 2026.

One shoot, dozens of ads

Ogilvy says a traditional celebrity shoot typically produces eight to ten usable assets. ECHO aims to turn that single shoot into roughly 30 to 50 media-ready assets, adapted for different markets, platforms and seasons, while cutting the average cost per asset by up to 65 to 75 percent.

The system draws on verified talent scans stored in The CAA Vault, CAA's service for capturing, storing and licensing a performer's digital likeness, voice and intellectual property. Ogilvy says its AI likeness models are trained exclusively on those raw, high-fidelity scans, rather than on scraped images or unauthorised material.

The launch comes as advertisers and performers alike wrestle with unauthorised deepfakes and synthetic media. Ogilvy puts the global celebrity and athlete endorsement market at $25 billion a year, a market where the line between a real endorsement and a fake one has become harder to police.

Consent built into every asset

The platform's central promise is consent. Automated checks test each proposed asset against the talent's usage agreement and brand safety guidelines, but passing those checks is not the release decision. Every asset still requires final human sign-off from the talent through a dedicated Agent and Talent Approval Portal before it can be published.

Each cleared consumer-facing asset must also carry a visible watermark reading “[Talent Name] Approved | Recreated with AI”, identifying both the authorisation and the synthetic production.

Actor Terry Crews is among the early participants reported to have opted in, according to Digiday, although CAA has not named the full list of participating clients. A public unveiling is scheduled for 12 November during an OgilvyOn Live webinar.

Who built ECHO

ECHO was developed under Carol Reed, Ogilvy's global chief innovation officer, with creative direction from David Raichman, executive creative director and global AI creative lead, and Guillermo Vega, chief creative officer for Ogilvy North America.

Reed described the launch as the “NIL moment” between advertising and entertainment, a reference to the name, image and likeness rights that reshaped college sport in the United States. She told Digiday that a few pilot campaigns should go live towards the end of the year.

Whether the model catches on will depend on how many stars are willing to license their digital selves — and on whether audiences trust an ad that carries an AI watermark, even one the celebrity has approved.