The Deepfake Threat Facing Women Entrepreneurs
AI generated deepfakes are creating an increasingly serious business risk, with women entrepreneurs particularly exposed because the majority of deepfake content targets women. A recent US survey found that 67% of Americans are concerned about AI being used to exploit women. For female founders and executives, the threat extends beyond personal harassment or sexual exploitation to reputational damage, extortion, fraud and potentially significant financial losses for their companies.
The risk is especially significant for entrepreneurs whose personal identity is closely connected to their company. AI systems can increasingly reproduce a person’s appearance, voice and behavior using publicly available material. As founders build larger online profiles, they effectively provide more data that can potentially be used to create convincing impersonations. This makes it increasingly difficult for customers, employees and business partners to distinguish authentic communications from AI generated ones.
Women entrepreneurs interviewed by Forbes describe trust as one of the most vulnerable assets. A convincing deepfake can exploit credibility that took years to establish and potentially destroy it through a single viral incident. For small businesses in particular, where the founder often effectively represents the brand, reputational damage can directly affect customer relationships and the viability of the company.
Deepfakes also create direct financial risks. The article highlights the case of engineering firm Arup, where criminals used AI generated impersonations during a video conference to convince an employee to transfer approximately $25 million. The case demonstrates that attackers do not necessarily need to deceive the public at large. A convincing impersonation targeting a single employee at the right moment can be enough to cause substantial financial damage.
Victims have several potential legal remedies. Businesses may pursue defamation or false light claims when deepfakes damage their commercial reputation, while trademark claims under the Lanham Act may apply when impersonation misleads consumers. The federal TAKE IT DOWN Act also provides mechanisms requiring platforms to remove nonconsensual intimate deepfakes, while state laws can address identity theft and criminal harassment.
However, the article argues that existing protections remain inadequate. Enforcement can be slow and underfunded, while legal remedies generally intervene only after harmful material has already circulated and caused damage. Technology companies have also challenged some regulatory measures on free speech grounds. The author therefore argues that stronger preventive AI regulation is necessary, focusing not only on removing harmful deepfakes but also on preventing AI systems from generating nonconsensual and abusive content in the first place.
