Sam Gregory, Executive Director
Sam Gregory is a human rights advocate and technologist fighting on the front lines against deepfakes and deceptive AI, and supporting human rights defenders to use video and technology in defense of truth and fact. He drives cutting-edge approaches to preserve trust, authenticity, and evidence in our increasingly complex digital landscape. A recognized authority on audiovisual communication and deception, and on the use of video and technology to advance human rights, he has testified before both the US House and Senate on AI and media transparency and is a TED speaker and frequent keynote speaker who outlines the necessary steps to fight back against malicious and deceptive AI. In 2025, Sam was the Gruber Distinguished Lecturer in International Justice at Yale Law School on “Fortifying Truth, Trust and Evidence in the Face of Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology.”
Sam has over 25 years of global experience innovating and leading interventions at the intersections of video, technology, and human rights. As Executive Director of WITNESS, he spearheads our strategic plan to “Fortify the Truth,” championing a global team supporting millions to use video and technology for human rights, and with a proactive focus on shaping and adapting to an AI-mediated information ecosystem and combating deceptive AI and its impact on trust. WITNESS received the inaugural Peabody Global Impact Award in 2024 for “media or organizations that have profoundly changed the world for the better” and for its work “tirelessly championing the power of emergent media technologies in defense of human rights around the world.”
The Chronicle of Philanthropy has highlighted Sam as “a longtime human-rights advocate, [he} 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.” In 2018, he launched the “Prepare, Don’t Panic” initiative, a WITNESS-led global effort to tackle the challenges of deepfakes and generative AI. This pioneering work has directly influenced platform policies, legislation, and public debate on emerging technologies, and also includes the only global Deepfakes Rapid Response Force, connecting journalists with media forensic experts to expose AI-powered deception. Alongside this, WITNESS is now engaging with how an AI-mediated communications environment changes or challenges practices and paradigms of frontline human rights and journalistic work.
A global leader in using media for human rights advocacy, Sam is an experienced trainer and facilitator who has led workshops worldwide, partnered with grassroots human rights groups in Asia and Latin America, and pioneered the first course on human rights advocacy using participatory media at Harvard (2010-18). A lead editor of Video for Change: A Guide for Advocacy and Activism, Sam also co-founded the global Video for Change network and helped launch WITNESS’s work on citizen media as evidence. He’s co-produced numerous advocacy videos with WITNESS partners, supporting over 20 impactful campaigns that have screened everywhere from the UN and US Congress to the UK Parliament, achieving real policy change across diverse contexts.
Sam has pioneered innovative tech solutions for activists. His work includes curating citizen journalism through the YouTube Human Rights Channel and the WITNESS Media Lab, as well as co-creating the award-winning ObscuraCam and ProofMode projects with the Guardian Project. These initiatives have driven tangible results, such as YouTube’s “visual anonymity and blurring” feature and the development of responsible media authenticity standards at the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA).
Sam has spoken at Davos and the White House and many other venues, served on the ICC Technology Advisory Board and advisory bodies to major tech platforms, co-chaired key initiatives and working groups for the Partnership on AI and the C2PA, published widely in academic contexts, and is a sought-after expert for media outlets like WIRED, CBS, and the New York Times. Sam was a Kennedy Memorial Scholar at the Harvard Kennedy School and in 2024, completed his PhD at the University of Westminster focused on participatory media, AI, and trust.
You can follow Sam on LinkedIn, BlueSky, and at samgregory.info