AI face swap is software that replaces the face in a photo or video with another face, matched to the original angle and lighting. You can do it free in a browser, where Magic Hour offers photo swaps with no sign-up, or on your own GPU with FaceFusion or the ReActor nodes for ComfyUI. Use only your own face, a fictional persona you generated, or an adult who gave written consent. Swapping a real person without consent breaks the rules of these tools and is a crime in many places when the result is intimate.
An AI face swap is software that finds the face in a photo or video and replaces it with a different face, matched to the original angle, lighting and expression. You can do it free in a browser (Magic Hour offers photo swaps with no sign-up) or on your own graphics card with FaceFusion or the ReActor nodes for ComfyUI. One rule decides whether any of it is acceptable: whose face it is.
Checked 13 October 2026 against Magic Hour's face swap page and terms; Akool's face swap page, pricing and content moderation policy; FaceFusion's releases, license table, disclaimer, installation guide and FAQ; the ReActor, Deep-Live-Cam and InsightFace repositories; the text of Public Law 119-12; sections 66E and 66B of the Sexual Offences Act 2003; the European Commission's Article 50 guidelines page; and the platform pages linked below. This is a documentation review, not a scored test, so nothing here ranks output quality. It is general information, not legal advice.
AI face swap: the quick answer
Hosted tools are the quick route and charge in daily limits, watermarks or credits. Local tools are free and private, need a graphics card, and come with model licenses that mostly rule out commercial work.
What is AI face swap, and how does it work?
A face swap is not a cut and paste. The software detects each face, reads its position and angle, generates the new identity in that same pose, and blends the edges into the original pixels. The identity comes from the source image. The pose, the lighting and everything outside the face come from the target.
- 01Detect
Find every face in the target image or frame.
- 02Read the identity
Turn the source face into a numeric description.
- 03Swap
Generate that identity in the target's pose and light.
- 04Mask
Keep hair, hands and glasses that cross the face.
- 05Restore
Sharpen the result, which starts at low resolution.
- 06Repeat per frame
For video, do all of it again for each frame.
Two details explain most of what you will see. The swap model many tools are built on works at 128 pixels: FaceFusion's FAQ says InsightFace "opted against releasing" higher-resolution models "due ethical considerations", which is why tools add a pixel boost or a face restoration step. And video is processed frame by frame, so small differences between frames show up as shimmer around the eyes and mouth.
Is that a deepfake? A realistic face swap is one kind. Deep-Live-Cam calls itself "deepfake software", and the US statute uses the term "digital forgery". The label matters less than whose face is involved.
- A celebrity, athlete or politician
- Another creator, or a stranger from social media
- A friend or an ex who has not agreed in writing
- Anyone under 18, in any context
- Your persona's face on a real person's body from their video
- Your own face
- A fictional adult persona you generated from a description
- An adult who signed a release that names AI face replacement
- Footage you shot yourself or have licensed
- Any of the above, labelled as AI when published
AI face swap tools compared, free and paid
Five tools, read on their own pages. The last column is each tool's rule on real faces, in its own terms.
| Tool | Where it runs | Works on | Cost and license | Its rule on real faces |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Magic Hour | Browser | Photo, video and GIF. Single face, multiple faces, head and body modes | Photo swaps free with no sign-up and no watermark, counted per day. Commercial use needs a paid plan or credit pack | You must hold the rights and consents the law requires. No intimate content of a real person without consent, and no impersonation |
| Akool | Browser | Photos and video | Priced in credits, with a free plan on its pricing page. The free allowance for face swap is not stated on the pages read | Prohibits sexualised deepfakes and content that impersonates individuals, celebrities or brands |
| FaceFusion 3.9.1 | Your own GPU | Images and video, with a webcam mode | Free under OpenRAIL-AS. Most swapper models are labelled Non-Commercial or ResearchRAIL | Built to refuse nudity and graphic content. Misuse can mean a community ban or a report to the authorities |
| ReActor 0.7.1 for ComfyUI | Your own GPU, inside ComfyUI | Images, and frames from a video loader | Free under GPL-3.0. The InsightFace models it downloads are for non-commercial research only | Get the consent of any real person and say clearly that the result is a deepfake. Includes a nudity detector |
| Deep-Live-Cam | Your own GPU | Live webcam and video, from a single image | Free under AGPL-3.0. Its InsightFace model is for non-commercial research only | Obtain consent for a real person's face and label the output as a deepfake. A built-in check blocks nudity and graphic content |
Free has two meanings here. A hosted free tier costs nothing and limits what you may do with the result: Magic Hour's terms say output created without a paid arrangement is "limited to personal, non-commercial use". A local tool costs nothing to run, but InsightFace says its pretrained models "are for non-commercial research only", and FaceFusion labels its swapper models one by one: HyperSwap is ResearchRAIL, INSwapper, SimSwap, BlendSwap and AlphaFace are Non-Commercial, and GHOST alone is Apache 2.0. If a brand is paying for the content, read the license of every model in the pipeline first.
One name from older guides is gone. Roop, an early one-click swapper, carries a notice that its repository was archived by the owner on 17 May 2026 and is read-only.
How to do an AI face swap
In a browser the whole job is three actions: upload the photo whose face you want to replace, upload a clear photo of the replacement face, and press the swap button. Use a sharp, front-facing source with even light, and read the tool's privacy policy before uploading anything, because a hosted tool sends both images to someone else's server. A local tool keeps the files on your machine.
The local route is worth the setup for one job in particular: repairing frames where your own generated character drifted off-model. This is the ReActor version. It needs ComfyUI and ComfyUI Manager first.
- 1Install ReActor from ComfyUI Manager
Install Custom Nodes, search ReActor, install, then restart the server.
- 2Get the models the README lists
A swap model such as inswapper_128, reswapper or hyperswap. Note the license of each.
- 3Build a face model of your persona
Feed several sharp references into Build Blended Face Model. It saves as a safetensors file.
- 4Connect the input
ReActor accepts a Load Image or Load Video node, plus your saved face model.
- 5Target the right face
Face indexes start at 0. Set them when more than one face is in frame.
- 6Mask, restore and check
Add the Masking Helper, use the built-in face restoration, then run Face Similarity against a reference.
For video on your own GPU, FaceFusion's installation guide creates a conda environment with Python 3.12, installs for your accelerator, and starts the app with python facefusion.py run --open-browser. Render a five-second test before a full clip.
| Problem | Likely cause | What to try |
|---|---|---|
| Soft, low-detail face | The classic swap model works at 128 pixels | Raise the pixel boost in FaceFusion, or add face restoration in ReActor, then compare at full size |
| The wrong face was swapped | Several faces in the frame | Set face indexes in ReActor. The first detected face is index 0 |
| Hair or a hand pasted over | No mask for objects crossing the face | Add the ReActor Masking Helper node |
| The identity looks slightly off | One weak source image | Build a face model from several sharp references of your persona and check it with the Face Similarity node |
| Out of memory | Too little VRAM | FaceFusion calls 8 GB the bare minimum and says 12 GB or more should work fine |
Is AI face swap legal? Consent and the law
It depends on the face. Your own, a fictional persona's, or a consenting adult's is generally lawful. A real person who has not agreed is where the tools, the platforms and the law all say no, and the law has moved fastest on intimate content.
| Place | What the law says | Source |
|---|---|---|
| United States (federal) | The TAKE IT DOWN Act covers the intentional disclosure of non-consensual intimate images, including a "digital forgery" of an identifiable individual made with AI. Covered platforms must remove a reported image within 48 hours. | Public Law 119-12, approved 19 May 2025 |
| England and Wales | A person commits an offence if they intentionally create "a purported intimate image of another person" who does not consent. Sharing one is a separate offence. | Sexual Offences Act 2003, sections 66E and 66B |
| European Union | The AI Act's Article 50 transparency obligations for providers and deployers of AI systems apply from 2 August 2026. | European Commission guidelines on Article 50 |
The US act defines a digital forgery as an intimate visual depiction of an identifiable individual "created through the use of software, machine learning, artificial intelligence, or any other computer-generated or technological means" that a reasonable person could not tell from an authentic one. That is a description of a face swap. Outside intimate content, a non-consensual swap can still break likeness, fraud and defamation law, which differs by state and country; our deepfake laws guide maps it, and the EU duty is in EU AI Act deepfake labeling.
Consent means a signed release, not a message. It should name AI face replacement, where the result will appear, payment, the term and how consent can be withdrawn, and the person must be an adult. What a release needs is in our AI likeness rights guide.
Do you have to label a face swap?
On the main platforms, yes, and that applies even when the face is your own persona's.
| Platform | What its page says |
|---|---|
| TikTok | Requires a label on realistic AI-generated content, and names "an AI face-swap" as an example of significant editing. Not allowed even with a label: the likeness of anyone under 18, or of "adult private figures used without their permission". |
| YouTube | Creators must disclose content that "makes a real person appear to say or do something they didn't do" or shows a realistic scene that did not occur. |
| A profile that features an AI-generated person should switch on the AI-generated profile label. Unlabelled profiles Instagram detects may see limits to their reach. |
Sources, read 13 October 2026: TikTok's AI-generated content page, YouTube's GenAI disclosure page and Instagram's profile label announcement (31 August 2026). Instagram's help page on labelling single posts did not load its content for this check, so it is not quoted; the setting is covered in our Instagram AI label guide.
Face swap for an AI persona: usually the wrong tool
If the goal is the same fictional face in new images or video, generating it is cleaner than swapping it. A swap edits a face onto existing pixels. A character LoRA or a reference-based model produces the right face in the first place, with no non-commercial swap model in the chain. Swap only to repair a few drifted frames, or to replace your own face with the persona's in footage you filmed.
The generating routes are in our consistent character AI guide, the LoRA training guide and the AI face consistency guide. For motion, animate an approved still: see the image to video AI guide and the Kling image-to-video tutorial, with the models compared in AI models for creators. The AI Influencers program teaches the whole pipeline, with a lesson on face swap consent and safe workflows.
- The face is your own, a generated persona, or a consenting adult with a signed release
- The photo or footage underneath is yours, or licensed to you
- No real person could be mistaken for the one shown
- Every model in the pipeline is licensed for how you will use the result
- Checked at full size: edges, teeth, hairline, hands crossing the face
- The AI label is on for the post and for the account
- Source images, release and model list are saved with the project
What other face swap pages get wrong
The pages that rank for this search are mostly the tools themselves, and their marketing does not always match their own terms.
- Inviting celebrity swaps. Some landing pages suggest swapping faces with a favourite celebrity or athlete, then ask you to tick a box confirming you hold the rights to every image. Only the tick box is binding, and you do not hold those rights.
- "100% free" and "unlimited". Every free tier read for this page had a daily count, a credit meter or a personal-use limit.
- Privacy as a slogan. A claim that uploads are deleted is only as good as the privacy policy behind it. Read it before uploading a face.
- No mention of licenses. Free to download is not free to use commercially, and the model licenses are where that is written.
AI face swap: FAQ
What is AI face swap?
AI face swap is software that finds a face in a photo or video and replaces it with a different face, matched to the original angle, lighting and expression. Hosted tools do it in a browser from two uploads. Local tools such as FaceFusion and the ReActor nodes for ComfyUI do it on your own graphics card. Used on a real person without consent, it breaks the tools' rules and is unlawful in many places.
Is there a free AI face swap?
Yes. On 13 October 2026 Magic Hour offered photo face swaps free, with no sign-up and no watermark, counted per day, and limits free output to personal, non-commercial use. FaceFusion, ReActor and Deep-Live-Cam are free to run on your own computer, though the swap models most of them rely on are licensed for non-commercial use only.
Can I use AI face swap with no sign-up?
For photos, yes. Magic Hour's face swap page says its photo swap is free with no sign-up and no watermark, with a daily count shown under the upload box. A local tool needs no account at all because nothing leaves your computer. Whichever you use, having no account does not remove the need for rights to both images.
Does AI face swap work on video?
Yes. Magic Hour lists video and GIF modes next to photo. FaceFusion processes video on your own GPU, and Deep-Live-Cam swaps a face on a live webcam feed from a single image. In ComfyUI, ReActor accepts frames from a Load Video node. Video is where a swap fails most visibly, because small differences between frames show up as shimmer.
Is AI face swap legal?
Swapping your own face, a fictional character you generated, or an adult who gave written consent is generally lawful. Swapping a real person without consent is not safe ground anywhere. The US TAKE IT DOWN Act covers non-consensual intimate images including AI-made digital forgeries, and in England and Wales creating a purported intimate image of an adult without consent is an offence. This is general information, not legal advice.
Is a face swap the same as a deepfake?
A realistic face swap is one kind of deepfake. Deep-Live-Cam describes itself as deepfake software, TikTok names an AI face swap as an example of significant AI editing, and US law uses the term digital forgery for an AI-made intimate image of an identifiable person. The word matters less than two questions: whose face it is, and whether the result is labelled.
Can I use AI face swap results commercially?
Check every part. Magic Hour limits output made without a paid plan or credit pack to personal, non-commercial use. InsightFace says its pretrained models are for non-commercial research only, and FaceFusion labels most of its swapper models non-commercial or research-only. You also need the rights to the face and to the photo or footage underneath it.
Free · no card needed
Start with the free Starter Kit.
An AI character bible from AI Influencers, plus four more working files.
Stop patching faces. Build one that holds.
A persona that needs a swap in every clip has a consistency problem upstream. AI Influencers, included in All Access, covers persona creation, LoRA training for consistent faces, video, voice and the consent and labelling rules, alongside the other three programs, live coaching and the private community.
Tools and rules change monthly
FaceFusion, ReActor and the platform label rules all changed in 2026. The free Telegram channel posts the updates that affect persona workflows.