Description: Spokane-area appliance retailer Fred's Appliance and production company Victory Media allegedly used AI-assisted editing to alter the voice of Amber George, the longtime spokeswoman for Fred's Appliance, in advertisements assembled from earlier footage. George said the ads were created without her knowledge or consent. The companies acknowledged the voice edits but said they believed her contract authorized them and denied using AI to alter her image.
Editor Notes: Timeline note: The incident ID date is 02/16/2026, using the reported President's Day advertisement as an anchor because its exact publication date has not been identified. A lawsuit filed on 06/30/2026 documented the alleged unauthorized AI-assisted use of Amber George's voice. The incident ID was created on 07/04/2026.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Deepfake technology developers , Synthetic media generation technology developers , Synthetic video generation technology developers , Synthetic audio generation technology developers and Voice cloning technology developers developed an AI system deployed by Fred's Appliance , Victory Media , Deepfake creators , Advertisers and Media production companies, which harmed Amber George , Spokespeople and Privacy.
Alleged implicated AI systems: Deepfake technology , Voice cloning technology , Synthetic audio generation technology , Synthetic video generation technology and Synthetic media generation technology
Incident Stats
Incident ID
1565
Report Count
1
Incident Date
2026-02-16
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
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For the past 14 years, Spokane residents learned about upcoming sales and promotions at locally owned Fred's Appliance through the voice and smiling face of Amber George.
But in February, George noticed on social media that Fred's, and prod…
Variants
A "variant" is an AI incident similar to a known case—it has the same causes, harms, and AI system. Instead of listing it separately, we group it under the first reported incident. Unlike other incidents, variants do not need to have been reported outside the AIID. Learn more from the research paper.
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