‘Synthetic twin’: Why Socceroo Cristian Volpato is the latest footballer to license his AI clone

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Published 24 Oct 2026, 20:00 BST1 min read

File photograph: Server networking equipment at the University of Washington in Seattle. Taylor Vick / Unsplash. Illustrative context, not a photograph of this reported event.

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Athletes’ scramble to control – and monetise – their digital identities at the cutting edge of AI rights deals The Socceroos star stares at the camera as he strides through an enormous atrium, the sound of his football boots on polished concrete echoing around him. Suddenly, he spawns four digital clones that peel off out of view to re-emerge in different settings around the world. This scene from a social media video is fake and generated by artificial intelligence.

But it has been authorised by the very real 22-year-old footballer, Cristian Volpato, the latest professional athlete to licence and monetise his AI likeness.

Read the original report at The Guardian.

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The Guardian

Source headline and summary supplied via NewsData.io. First collected by NewsJaws on 2026-10-25. This is an automated news brief, not original NewsJaws reporting. Dates reflect the source publication. Feed delays may apply.