On 7 April 2026, the Mexican Chamber of Deputies passed a reform amending both the Federal Labor Law and the Federal Copyright Law to regulate the use of artificial intelligence in the exploitation of the image, likeness, and voice of performers and entertainers. This marks the first time AI has been specifically addressed in Mexico’s Federal Labor Law at the federal level, establishing that performers retain rights over AI-generated reproductions of their likeness even after the underlying contract has ended.
The reform also places obligations on employers and production companies to obtain explicit consent from workers when their image or voice is used to train AI models or generate synthetic performances. While this reform is narrowly scoped to the entertainment and media sector, it establishes a precedent in Mexican federal labor law for worker rights specifically in relation to AI-driven decisions, relevant to dimension 9.
The broader AI governance bill (CONAIA) that would establish cross-sector AI regulation remained in Senate committee as of late April 2026. The performers’ rights amendment is therefore a targeted sector-specific protection rather than a comprehensive framework, but represents meaningful movement on worker rights in the context of AI-driven job displacement within that sector.