Sam Gregory

Sam Gregory is an internationally recognized, award-winning technologist and researcher working at the intersection of AI and emerging technology— with a 25-year foundation in human rights and civic media.

He is a leading expert on deepfakes, media authenticity and provenance, and generative AI, and on helping societies anticipate the risks and opportunities of fast-moving technology.

He has testified to both Houses of the US Congress on AI and synthetic media, and is a TED speaker on how to prepare better for the threat of deepfakes.

He initiated the first globally focused effort to "Prepare, Don't Panic" around deepfakes and generative AI, four years before ChatGPT. He co-chaired the Threats and Harms Taskforce of the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA), helping steward the technical standard now used to signal the origins of AI-generated media, and initiated the first global Deepfake Rapid Response Force for expert verification of contentious content. His work spans standards bodies, governments, and technology companies, partnering where it helps while keeping civil society's independence.

Outgoing Executive Director of the global human rights organization WITNESS (through August 2026),which won the first-ever Peabody Award for Global Impact under his leadership, Sam has spent over twenty-five years at the forefront of foresight, practice, impact, and innovation in technology, human rights, and civic participation.

In 2025, Sam was the Gruber Distinguished Lecturer in Global Justice at Yale Law School on “Fortifying Truth, Trust and Evidence in the Face of Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology" and in 2026 he received the CAIDP AI Policy Leader Award for Civil Society

Sam is a Board Member of the Scott Trust, the owners of the Guardian Media Group.

Get in touch - sam@samgregory.info, via LinkedIn, or DM me on BlueSky @samgregory

In 2024, Sam proudly accepted the first ever Peabody Global Impact Award, recognizing how WITNESS has evolved repeatedly over the years, "tirelessly championing the power of emergent media technologies in defense of human rights around the world', and has "profoundly changed the world for the better"

“A longtime human-rights advocate, Gregory is a leading authority on deepfakes and other forms of A.I.-generated misinformation and disinformation. He focuses on preparing countries and communities for how doctored videos and manipulated media could be used to justify coups, jail innocents, and spark conflict.”

’33 Leaders Standing Up To Big Tech in the Age of AI’, The Chronicle of Philanthropy

Quoted in the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, CNN, the Guardian, MIT Tech Review, The Atlantic, the BBC, the Economist, and WIRED.

Media appearances on ABC, CBS, PBS, CBC-Canada, the BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera, NHK.

Invited to brief the National AI Advisory Council, and to testify on AI before the US Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Data Security and the House Oversight Committee Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology and Government Innovation.

Keynotes for the Content Authenticity Initiative Summit, WEXFO, PopTech, AI for Good, RightsX, TrustCon Trust and Safety Professionals Association conference, Trusted Media Summit, and TED Talk at TED.

Invited to give the 2025 Gruber Distinguished Lecture on Global Justice at Yale Law School

Featured on the first episode of the TED AI Show: Is AI Destroying Our Sense of Reality?