AI clone or AI that works like you? The difference, and the law.
An AI clone imitates how a person looks or sounds; a helper built on an engram drafts the way that person decides, in writing, for that person to approve. The law has moved fastest on telling people they are dealing with an AI and on protecting voices and faces, which is why Duplikate labels what it drafts and works in text only.
Sources checked This page explains; it is not legal advice. Each law is summarised from the source beside it, as it stood on the date checked.
A clone copies the surface. An engram holds the decisions.
An AI clone, in the usual sense, is an avatar: a model of a face and a voice that says what it is given. A helper built on your engram does something else. It drafts replies, triages and prepares decisions the way you make them, cites the rule and the message where you made it, and waits for your approval.
Telling people they are dealing with an AI.
In the European Union, Article 50 of the AI Act has applied since 2 August 2026. Providers must "ensure individuals are clearly informed they are dealing with an AI system", and systems that generate content must "mark outputs in a machine-readable, detectable format." Fines reach 15 million euros or 3% of worldwide annual turnover, whichever is higher. Systems already on the market before that date have until 2 December 2026 to meet the marking duty.
That is why a Duplikate helper is built to label every message it sends as drafted by your AI, with a machine-readable tag. The Trust page shows whether each commitment like this one is live yet.
Voices and faces: where likeness law is moving.
In the United States, the NO FAKES Act of 2026 (S.4591 and H.R.8915) was reintroduced on 20 May 2026 to give every person "a federal, licensable property right in their own voice and visual likeness". Manatt's summary of 28 May 2026 notes that it still needed committee and floor votes.
In California, AB 2602 requires a contract that licenses a performer's digital replica to include "a reasonably specific description of how the digital replica will be used", for performances fixed on or after 1 January 2025. AB 1836 extends post-mortem rights to digital replicas, for up to 70 years after death.
Denmark has proposed amending its copyright law to "ban the sharing of realistic deepfakes of people's faces and voices without their consent", and the minister hopes it takes effect at the start of 2027.
Not a companion.
California's SB 243 regulates companion chatbots, "artificial intelligence (AI) systems designed to provide adaptive, human-like social interactions", with some requirements at once and others phased in by 1 July 2027. A Duplikate helper is a work tool that drafts for you to approve. It is not built or sold for companionship.
Why Duplikate works in text only.
Voice and likeness law is moving faster than anything else here, and a helper that writes needs none of it. Duplikate writes. It does not clone voices or faces, and it builds an engram only from a person's own record, with that person's written consent.
The label a recipient sees.
A message the fictional Sam's helper drafted and Sam approved, as its recipient sees it. Open the tag to see the machine-readable part.
- From
- Sam
- To
- A buyer at a restaurant group
- Subject
- Your reorder
Thanks for the reorder. I can do 8% and move you to 60-day terms. Shall I confirm the 40 cases at that?
Drafted by Sam's AI, approved by Sam.
Show the machine-readable tag
X-Drafted-By: ai
X-Approved-By: ownerAn illustration: the tag's final format follows the standard the product adopts.
Side by side.
| Dimension | A video or voice clone | A chat clone for an audience | A helper on your engram |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it copies | A face and a voice | Public content, to answer other people | How you decide, from your own record |
| Who it talks to | Whoever watches it | Your audience | Nobody until you approve; it drafts for you |
| Disclosure | Depends on the product | Depends on the product | Built to label every message as drafted by your AI |
| Where the law bites hardest | Voice and likeness | Disclosure, and what it tells others | Disclosure, which it is built around |
Categories, not products: what each kind of tool does by design. The law is summarised above, with its sources.
When each one fits.
A video or voice clone fits when the point is a recorded presence, such as narration or a greeting, made with the person's consent.
A chat clone fits when an expert wants an audience to ask questions of material that is already public.
A helper on your engram fits when the bottleneck is your own decisions, in writing, and you want to approve each one.
What people ask first.
- Is making an AI clone of yourself illegal?
- The laws summarised on this page aim at other things: using someone else's face or voice without consent, telling people they are dealing with an AI, and how a replica is licensed. Whether a particular use is legal where you are is a question for a lawyer; this page is not legal advice.
- Can AI replicate a person?
- Not as a person. It can imitate a face, a voice or a writing style, and an engram can capture how someone decides well enough to be measured against them. It is not the person, and the honest test is how often it agrees with them.
- Is an engram an AI clone?
- No. It imitates neither your face nor your voice. It is a working record of how you decide, built from your own words with your consent, used by a helper that drafts for you to approve.
- Do I have to tell people when my AI wrote something?
- In the European Union, providers of AI systems that talk to people must make sure people know they are dealing with an AI, and generated content must be marked. A Duplikate helper is built to label every message either way.
- Why does Duplikate not do voice?
- Because voice and likeness law is moving fastest, and a helper that writes needs none of it. Duplikate writes. It does not clone voices or faces.
Read how control works, or start.
A helper that writes, and asks first.
You'll talk to a senior engineer, not a sales rep, and leave knowing what your engram would be built from and how it would be measured.