Why Hollywood stars are willing to promote AI

Celebrities are increasingly backing AI companies despite public backlash. Lionel Messi, whom the source calls one of the five best-known people on the planet, appeared in an OpenAI advertising campaign for the FIFA World Cup. Some stars seem drawn to the technology’s potential; others are counting on a large fee. But their interest also reflects deliberate outreach by AI companies and growing instability in the entertainment industry.

Why Hollywood stars agree to promote AI

How AI companies attract stars

One person helping OpenAI build relationships in Hollywood is Charles Porch. New York Magazine called him “OpenAI’s Hollywood middleman.” Before that, Porch spent 15 years at Instagram, persuading well-known people to use a platform that eventually became a significant cultural force.

In 2025, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman hired Porch to do similar work for ChatGPT. Among the celebrities he introduced to the AI company was actress Gwyneth Paltrow. In September, Porch arranged a dinner for her with Altman, but the meeting had to be postponed after rumors about it sparked public outrage.

Porch calls himself a “technology optimist” and describes his role as helping people adopt new technologies, rather than working on business development or branding. In practice, though, the focus is on celebrities with large audiences and high incomes.

Companies deliberately court famous people in the hope of benefiting from their influence. The article’s author compares this with other cases in which celebrities turned to questionable doctors, embraced unusual beliefs, or backed people and brands at odds with their public image. A recent Hollywood example cited in the article is Martin Scorsese’s support for a startup that uses AI to create storyboards.

There is less work

There is another reason actors may accept such offers: many are finding it increasingly difficult to get work. An anonymous media executive told New York Magazine that Hollywood is now working mainly with its most sought-after actors. Robert Pattinson, the executive said, appears in almost every project, while Nicole Kidman is in nearly every series. Actors one tier below them, the source claimed, are not getting work.

Technology companies have already weakened the film industry, the article’s author writes. He compares their impact to the way Spotify, in his assessment, drains money from musicians. Now AI threatens to take over even more creative work: it cannot replace human creativity, but it can offer an acceptable substitute. At the same time, uncertainty around AI is prompting industry executives to cut costs, which means less work for everyone.

Against this backdrop, AI companies are entering a weakened industry with enormous resources and the freedom to spend them. In the author’s view, the scale of that spending can blind even those who might otherwise have been wary of working with AI.

Dataist’s take: celebrities’ interest in AI reflects both deliberate efforts to attract stars and a situation in which many artists have to seek new sources of income. But the examples in the article do not show how widely AI is already replacing creative work: the source describes the threat and the industry’s anxiety, not the measured scale of these changes.