This Consumer Alert is about how AI is being used right now to try to con you out of your money. The latest involves the singer and talk show host, Kelly Clarkson.  It seems everyone is talking about Kelly Clarkson’s dramatic weight loss. Now scammers are using it to try to scam consumers.

Her weight loss is dramatic, and she’s been very open about how she did it. As a guest host on “Today with Hoda and Jenna,” Clarkson told Hoda Kotb that she followed the guidance in a book called The Plant Paradox. It tells you specific foods to avoid including soy, sugar, sweeteners and even beans and grains. But a scam is circulating on social media that appears to show Kelly Clarkson appearing to promote keto weight loss gummies.

In an altered video, Clarkson appears to say, “Today I’ll share a secret method on how to lose weight without dieting or going to the gym. Please be aware of other keto scams. This is our only licensed product.  As a thank you to our viewers who have been supporting us, it is now available for free in limited quantities. We promise you will lose 35 pounds in three weeks.”

The voice sounds exactly like Kelly Clarkson.  It looks like Kelly Clarkson, but you may notice her face looks slightly altered and her lips don’t exactly match her speech. The video makes it look like she’s selling keto weight loss gummies. And lots of folks now erroneously attribute her weight loss to those gummies.  It’s not true. Scammers used AI to alter Clarkson’s real video.

In the actual video Clarkson published on Instagram on June 23 she says, “The album came out today ya’ll.  Chemistry is finally out.  Oh my gosh. I wrote it so long ago I can’t believe it’s finally happening.”

The real video clearly shows that she wasn’t promoting gummies; she was promoting her new album.

I’ve been investigating deep fakes on social media, and I’ve found five altered videos of Kelly Clarkson alone. It’s so important that we, as consumers, regard any ad on social media with a healthy dose of skepticism.