Screen actors have signed off on their new deal with the studios. After a three-week vote that opened on May 14, 91.42% of SAG-AFTRA members who took part backed the agreement with the AMPTP, on a turnout of a little over 19%. The tentative terms had been announced on May 2.
The part that matters most for AI concerns synthetic performers, meaning generated actors that are not copies of a real, paid union member. Studios commit to using union actors overwhelmingly, and a production that wants a synthetic must be ready to show the union that it adds "significant additional value", measured against both a human actor and a licensed digital replica of one. The phrase is not defined in the contract.
If the two sides cannot agree on a given use, the union can take it to an arbitrator and seek damages that need not be capped at what a human performer would have earned. The union's negotiators presented this as keeping synthetics the exception, and argued that the replica comparison narrows their use sharply because a replica already carries consent and pay obligations.
Beyond AI, the deal merges the two legacy pension plans by 2028 and raises the studios' contribution to the streaming bonus fund from 25% to 35% of residuals for hits reaching a fifth of a service's subscribers within 90 days. The Directors Guild, the last union still bargaining this cycle, was expected to raise AI protections of its own before its contract ran out on June 30.
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