New Delhi, November 6: Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI employees had reportedly been asked to sign agreements to use their faces and voices for training the company’s upcoming chatbots. It is also said to be linked to xAI’s development of its virtual companion "Ani", which is an anime-style avatar with blond pigtails and an NSFW mode, introduced earlier this year for users of the SuperGrok service.

Musk was reportedly spending long hours at his AI venture, xAI, in an effort to catch up in the artificial intelligence (AI) race. Employees were said to have been required to share their biometric data to train virtual avatars like Ani. Snapchat App New Feature Update: Perplexity To Become Default AI for All Snapchat Users From January 2026.

During an internal meeting held in April, xAI’s lawyer, Lily Lim, reportedly informed employees that the company was working on avatars for Grok users. To make these chatbots behave and look more human in conversations, Lim said the project would require gathering biometric data from staff members for training purposes.

As per a report of The Wall Street Journal, most of the employees involved were "AI tutors" responsible for training the large language models behind Grok. These tutors were reportedly asked to sign a document granting xAI "a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, sub-licensable, royalty-free license" to use and reproduce their voices and faces as part of a confidential initiative, which is referred as "Project Skippy."

As per reports, some employees were uneasy about the demand, and expressed their concerns that their images could be sold to other companies or may be used in deepfake videos. However, they were reportedly informed that submitting this data would help to advance xAI’s mission. Elon Musk Says Solar-Powered AI Satellite Constellation Would Be Able To Prevent Global Warming.

A few days later, xAI tutors reportedly received another internal notice. The document informed staff that they would be directly involved in gathering or providing data, which could include recording audio or taking part in video sessions. It further stated that providing such data was considered an essential part of their role in “job requirement” supporting xAI’s vision.

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(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 06, 2025 12:53 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).