What It Means
Deepfake refers to an image or recording that has been convincingly altered and manipulated to misrepresent someone as doing or saying something that was not actually done or said.
The leaked video incriminating the school’s dean was discovered to be a deepfake.
Deepfake in Context
“Overall, the deepfakes are impressive, if not maybe a tad uncanny, showing a near-perfect replica of how Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood looked in the late ’70s.” — Ethan Millman, The Hollywood Reporter, 14 May 2026
Did You Know?
The old maxim “things aren’t always as they seem” seems more true than ever in the age of deepfakes. A deepfake is an image, or a video or audio recording, that has been edited using an algorithm to replace the person in the original with someone else (especially a public figure) in a way that makes it look authentic. The fake in deepfake is transparent: deepfakes are not real. The deep is less self-explanatory: this half of the term is specifically influenced by deep learning—that is, machine learning using artificial neural networks with multiple layers of algorithms.
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