AI-Driven Advertising: An Interview with Fernanda Magalhães

Fernanda Magalhães (Kasznar Leonardos Intellectual Property, Brazil)

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a powerful tool for creative teams building marketing and advertising campaigns. As AI continues to revolutionize these industries, with major brands gaining publicity for launching AI-generated ads during top television events, it is reshaping not only how ads are created and delivered but also how copyright risks and ethical concerns—such as the proliferation of deep fakes and misinformation—are managed by agencies and brand owners.

Fernanda Magalhães (Kasznar Leonardos Intellectual Property, Brazil) will moderate a session at the 2025 Annual Meeting titled AI-Driven Advertising: Copyright Issues in the New Frontier. Panelists will explore the evolving landscape where AI intersects with advertising and intellectual property (IP), focusing on practical challenges and opportunities that arise in this dynamic environment. Ms. Magalhães recently sat down with the INTA Bulletin to discuss how AI is changing the relationship between advertising and IP and to shed light on the differing approaches of AI regulation around the globe. She also shares what keeps her up at night when it comes to AI, and more.

AI has been transforming the way people work across a wide range of industries. Broadly speaking, how has this technology changed the advertising industry up to now?
Clearly, AI has a number of implications for business. Tools such as live chatbots and virtual assistants not only engage customers but enhance their brand experience. From a marketing and advertising perspective, though, AI offers an incredible opportunity for personalization of ad content. AI enables highly tailored ads that are chosen for individual consumers through analysis of consumer data to enable more direct, personalized conversations between brands and consumers during the shopping experience.

On the IP side of things, AI has major implications for content creation, including marketing content. I recently read an article on a fashion blog about a brand openly using AI in their ads, and the legal issues surrounding the brand’s use of the images of real-life models. Content creation is definitely the most relevant aspect of implementation or incorporation of AI into the advertising industry. We’ll be exploring these issues during the Annual Meeting session, bringing the perspective of lawyers who advise marketing professionals and the advertising industry on a daily basis.

Innovation often also brings ethical concerns that require debate and discussion. For example, INTA’s Board of Directors recently passed a resolution addressing the harms associated with deep fakes. What are some of the issues the advertising industry is grappling with as it integrates AI?
The first concerns that come to mind are privacy and data security. AI-driven advertising relies heavily on personal data to target the right consumers, so issues such as consent and the potential misuse of consumer information are significant, especially with the need to comply with laws such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe or the General Personal Data Protection Law (LGPD) here in Brazil.

The issues that relate specifically to content creation include how IP rights intersect with AI-generated copywriting and image generation, including images that may be protected by personality rights, or right of publicity, as it’s known in the United States. Who owns this content if it’s created by AI instead of a human from your advertising agency, or in-house by a brand? Have the laws around the world been adapted to address these questions? If infringement occurs, is the brand equipped to fight over potential infringements, or potential misuse by suppliers or partners, or sourced entities, such as an advertising agency or creative agency?

The integration of AI into any creative process—the creation of text, images, videos, or music—will complicate the traditional IP frameworks when it comes to questions of ownership and the protection of the work generated by the AI platform. Brands should be aware of these issues and be very intentional as to how and when they use AI. Having no strategy is certainly not the best strategy when there are so many risks attached!

On an ethical level, there is a unanimous concern about the ability of AI to create deep fakes and spread misinformation that poses reputational risks. That perhaps will become a reality in a very short time, as brands allow the use of AI in content creation. AI-generated advertising content could then be fed back into AI, and that could lead to the creation of deep fakes and misinformation being spread about the brand. That could easily spin out of control, so brands should keep it in mind when they’re looking to use and apply AI as a tool for advertising.

How has AI changed the way marketers and IP professionals collaborate?
As I mentioned earlier, AI can provide extremely valuable insights into consumer behavior, so it’s important for marketers to work with IP professionals to make sure that data is collected and used in both a legal and ethical manner. Advertisers will need to know a lot more about IP, and IP professionals will need to know a lot more about technology and how proprietary work is being used to feed AI, so the lawyers can advise, and the brands can make decisions based on concrete legal risks related to copyright-protected material.

As with other industries, AI also brings efficiency to advertising. It’s certainly much more efficient to create an image for an ad using AI versus hiring an entire ecosystem of professionals to create an ad—from copywriters to the people who secure a location for the shoot to the makeup artists and the models and so on and so forth. Similarly, for IP professionals, AI can automate some of the management of IP portfolios and aspects of IP practice, such as trademark surveillance, cross-border monitoring of infringements, and clearance work, which is one of the most complicated and complex tasks that anybody can do on a global basis.

IP professionals definitely need to understand how it will affect their clients if they are or will be implementing or incorporating AI in the process of managing a portfolio. This technology is not yet widespread. It’s not everywhere, but it’s definitely coming down the pike.

Different jurisdictions are attempting to address the challenges posed by AI in different ways. For example, the European Union has enacted legislation allowing rights holders to object to the use of their works for AI training. What are some of the other key pieces of legislation being introduced to protect copyright holders from concerns surrounding AI?
We have a number of bills out there that address the challenges of AI, including some that specifically address IP. No doubt, IP is by-and-large at the center of the discussions around AI in the legislative realm, especially copyright.

In terms of the approaches taken worldwide, let’s start with the United Kingdom, which takes more of a principle-based framework rather than a prescriptive, rule-based framework. There’s flexibility around enforcement, with rules tailored to specific industries or specific risks.

While the Japanese framework, is, as of now, very principle based, a hard law approach to regulate certain risks, including IP ones is also being considered, which shows the challenges in creating a legal framework to regulate a technology that is still being developed.

Brazil has not yet implemented legislation specifically dealing with AI, but last year, one of our branches of Congress passed a bill that aims to create a legal framework to regulate the use of AI in the context of privacy, data protection, and IP. The bill is now being reviewed by the House of Representatives to then be voted on and potentially signed by the President. The current language in the bill poses a big concern around the use of copyrighted material for AI training, so that’s significant for AI platforms and technology companies.

As an IP professional, what keeps you up at night when it comes to AI?
I think it’s the challenge of finding the balance between fostering innovation and at the same time protecting rights holders. The technology is here, but how do we make sure that everything else that existed before is not taken for granted in the pursuit of becoming more efficient or collecting more data? That’s not a million-dollar question, it’s a trillion-dollar question!

I don’t think brands would want to see their content go unprotected for the sake of cost cutting. I think we’ll need to find this balance.

What’s one thing about the role of AI in advertising that you hope registrants will take away from your Annual Meeting session?
As AI becomes more and more integrated into advertising, it’s essential that brands, agencies, and legal professionals recognize that there are ethical and legal complexities involved. You need to make sure that there’s compliance with copyright law, or at least that the risks are assessed ahead of time before you approve the implementation of AI in your advertising practice. What we want registrants to take away is not only an understanding of these challenges, but also practical strategic advice and insights from our panelists, who are very much involved with this kind of question on a daily basis.

Other than serving as a session moderator, what is one thing you are looking forward to at the 2025 Annual Meeting?
That’s an easy one! It’s connecting in person. The Annual Meeting provides an incredibly valuable opportunity for us to connect in person with clients and colleagues. As we move into an even greater Digital Age, really knowing who is on the other side of the screen, what they are like in real life, and what moves them and the brands they represent seems even more important these days. It brings color to our day-to-day work.

Learn more and register for the 2025 Annual Meeting.

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