When an individual’s work can be digitally captured, replicated, and monetized, who gets to lay claim to the value?
In early 2025, Thomas Graham, CEO of Metaphysic, a leading AI generative video company confronted fundamental questions about who should control digital identity in a world where AI could perfectly recreate human likeness. Founded in 2021, Metaphysic first rose to fame through viral deepfake videos. It achieved a significant milestone with “Here,” the first major film to use AI for de-aging actors, including Tom Hanks. Operating at the intersection of entertainment and ethics, Metaphysic had two revenue streams: high-end content creation for Hollywood studios and a platform allowing individuals to own and control their digital likeness. The case explores how Hollywood’s longstanding “separated rights” framework—ensuring creators maintain ownership of their work beyond contracted uses—provided a foundation for Metaphysic’s business model and the basis for creators to capture value from new uses of their talent with AI.
However, as AI increasingly codified expertise across sectors, from consulting to private equity, these protections do not extend; employers own workplace data by default. In such environments, when an individual’s expertise can be digitally captured, replicated, and monetized, the case examines who can capture value, and the pivotal role of claiming data rights in complex multi-party negotiations.
Harvard Business School Associate Professor Zoe Cullen and host Brian Kenny explore the tensions between individual rights and commercial applications of AI and the central question of what protections must be forged today to ensure professionals in the future continue to contribute and be compensated in the case, Metaphysic AI: Rethinking the Value of Human Expertise.
BRIAN KENNY: Welcome to Cold Call, the podcast where we dive deep into the groundbreaking ideas behind Harvard Business School case studies. Artificial intelligence is no longer just helping people create. It’s beginning to replicate some of the most valuable forms of human expertise. As AI systems become capable of reproducing our voices, faces, writing, and even professional judgment, a new set of questions comes into focus. Who owns the digital version of you? If your experience and talent can be transformed into data, who should control it, profit from it, or decide how it’s used? Today’s conversation explores the intersection of technology, economics, labor markets, and intellectual property through the lens of one company working at the forefront of AI-generated media. We’ll examine why Hollywood may offer an unexpected blueprint for the future of work and what that could mean for every profession.
Today on Cold Call, we’ll discuss the case, “Metaphysic AI: Rethinking the Value of Human Expertise,” with Professor Zoe Cullen. I’m your host, Brian Kenny, and you’re listening to Cold Call on the HBR Podcast Network. Zoe Cullen studies the design of labor markets and the choices of employers and labor platforms that affect matters of public interest. That sounds like a perfect range of things for this conversation. Zoe, welcome.
BRIAN KENNY: You’re a first-time visitor to Cold Call, but given the kind of work that you’re doing at the School, I suspect we’ll try to get you back on the podcast at sometime soon. So I think this will be a super interesting conversation because most people saw… The video that it opens up with, that the case opens up with, was really the first taste that a lot of people had about AI image generation and just how realistic it could be. And I think it was both thrilling, but also a little scary for people to see that because the implications are big and this case touches on so many of those. What drew you to the story? I’m wondering why you decided to write a case about Metaphysic and what they’re doing.
ZOE CULLEN: Well, I’m so happy you started with that clip because that clip tells the whole story. That clip shows how AI deepfakes don’t really require the consent of the creator, especially for someone like Tom Hanks, who has a huge amount of public footage out there. So Metaphysic is this AI deepfake platform that operates within the norms and contracts of Hollywood and created a movie, “Here,” which did actually also use Tom Hanks, but used it with his full consent and that came at a very high price. So I wanted to understand why is a company doing this? How is it good for business and how does it reflect on the contracts that Hollywood has put in place over the last 100 years?
BRIAN KENNY: Okay. But what’s your cold call when you start the discussion? I’m curious.
ZOE CULLEN: The class actually starts with Suno AI, the music industry.
ZOE CULLEN: So students will produce a clip, usually about one minute long of their original music creation having explored Suno, the website that produces AI generated music.
BRIAN KENNY: It’s amazing actually. I’ve spent some time on Suno. It’s really cool.
ZOE CULLEN: So the class starts where students play their clips and they play their clips and everyone in the class has a chance to appreciate just what an amazing musician they’ve become in the last six months. And the reason why we start with the music industry and their clips is because they can see just how easy it was to expropriate the talent of many, many musicians in a 30-second clip. And not only can they expropriate it, but they have a way of commercializing it. And it’s very hard for them to see how or even creatively come up with a way for the original musicians in that piece to be paid for that work.
ZOE CULLEN: And they also, in the context of Suno, they try hard, many of them initially, to replicate the voice of a particular musician that they appreciate. So they’ll go in and try to do in the style of Taylor Swift, write me a song about my own dog. And that process highlights for them that Taylor Swift is not consenting to this process. And the app will absolutely not have the intellectual property rights to create something in Taylor Swift’s song. Now that’s in sharp contrast to what Metaphysic is able to do, which is to bring in the very top talent and attract them towards creating high production films. And it’s the difference between the contracts these two industries have in place that leads to a situation where you have access to the very best talent-
ZOE CULLEN: And a way of paying the very best talent.