Cate Blanchett has entered the fast-moving battle over artificial intelligence with a new nonprofit that puts consent at the center of how creative work and personal identity get used.

Blanchett co-founded RSL Media, a nonprofit company that seeks to create a human consent framework for AI use of creative work, as well as a person’s name, image and likeness. The move lands at a moment when artists, studios and tech companies continue to clash over who controls the raw material feeding AI systems and where permission begins.

The core argument behind RSL Media appears simple: AI cannot treat creative work and human identity as free material.

Support for the effort already stretches across a broad swath of the entertainment business. Reports indicate advocates and supporters include Javier Bardem, George Clooney, Viola Davis, Tom Hanks, Dame Helen Mirren, Steven Soderbergh, Kristen Stewart, Meryl Streep and Dame Emma Thompson, alongside Creative Artists Agency and other backers mentioned in early coverage. That lineup signals that concern over AI no longer sits at the edges of Hollywood; it now cuts through its top ranks.

Key Facts

  • Cate Blanchett co-founded RSL Media as a nonprofit.
  • The group focuses on consent around AI use of creative work, name, image and likeness.
  • Supporters include a number of major actors and filmmakers, according to reports.
  • CAA is among the backers cited in initial coverage.

The bigger stakes reach beyond film and television. AI tools can now mimic voices, generate images and absorb massive libraries of existing work at a scale that outpaces the rules built to govern them. RSL Media appears to target that gap by pushing a framework that treats consent not as an afterthought, but as a prerequisite. For creators and performers, that principle could shape future fights over compensation, control and authorship.

What comes next will matter far beyond one nonprofit launch. The pressure now shifts to whether RSL Media can turn a high-profile coalition into standards that the industry, and perhaps lawmakers, take seriously. If that happens, Blanchett’s move could help define how entertainment responds as AI pushes deeper into the business of making, copying and monetizing human expression.