OpenAI has hired Instagram’s vice president of global partnerships, Charles Porch, to serve as the AI company’s first-ever vice president of global creative partnerships. The newly created position is the latest move in OpenAI’s push to win over a skeptical entertainment industry.
In his over 15 years at Instagram, Facebook, and Meta, Porch was instrumental in bringing high-profile figures to the platforms. He facilitated the exclusive Instagram launch of Beyoncé’s self-titled album in 2013, coordinated Instagram’s portrait studios at Vanity Fair’s Oscar Party and the Met Gala, convinced Pope Francis to join the social media platform in 2016, and led an initiative in 2025 to lure TikTok creators over to Instagram Reels with “Breakthrough Bonus” payments.
OpenAI is hoping to reap similar benefits from Porch’s deep relationships with both talent and management in the worlds of music, film, fashion, art, sports, and the creator ecosystem.
While Porch and the company offered sparse details on the still-evolving role, which will begin in March, the most likely applications of his talent include arranging deals to license entertainers’ likenesses to appear in OpenAI’s video generation model Sora, building out the future of interactive AI platforms, and promoting AI tools for artistic development in industries like music, fashion, and film.
In an interview with Vanity Fair this week, Porch explained, “I’m going to be the person that’s talking to creative communities around the world to figure out how we build the best products to serve them.”
AI companies have so far received a frosty reception in Hollywood over fears that the technology will replace jobs, erode creativity, and devalue intellectual property. In 2023, dual writers’ and actors’ strikes paralyzed the industry, held up largely by complex negotiations over the usage of artificial intelligence. Both unions won a number of protections, including guarantees of compensation should actors’ images be used to create digital doubles and guardrails on studios’ ability to replace human labor with AI. These contracts are set to expire this summer, however.
In December, OpenAI made a major breakthrough with a $1 billion agreement with Disney. The three-year licensing deal will allow Sora to produce content featuring “animated, masked, and creature” characters from the worlds of Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars.
Licensing the likeness of real people will be a far taller order. In recent months, big-name stars like Matthew McConaughey, Michael Caine, and Gwyneth Paltrow have licensed their voices to be recreated by AI companies ElevenLabs and Speechify for audio content, signaling an openness from talent and agencies to dipping a toe into the world of AI, provided the right compensation models, data privacy agreements, and level of creative and reputational control.
