Beauty is no longer in the eye of the beholder — it’s in the hands of the generative artificial intelligence prompter. Take for instance, the ‘Miss AI’ beauty pageant organised by subscription social platform Fanvue, where over 1,500 AI-generated influencers compete for the $5,000 top prize. Or AI influencer Lil Miquela’s ascent to top model, starring in Prada and Calvin Klein campaigns and sharing them to her 2.4 million followers. Then, there’s Shudu Gram, widely recognised as the world’s first AI supermodel, who has already collaborated with Fenty Beauty and Ferragamo.

Brands, too, are racing to keep pace with the rise of AI-driven innovation. Balmain’s ‘virtual army’ introduced a fully digital model line-up to the luxury space in 2022. While Noonoouri, the doll-like virtual influencer, has fronted campaigns for Dior, Versace and Valentino, seamlessly blending AI aesthetics with high fashion. Even beauty giants are experimenting with AI-generated faces — L’Oréal’s AI model Shay, for example, serves as the face of a futuristic campaign designed to blur the lines between real and digital beauty.

Yet, as AI-generated faces become more prominent, they’ve also come under fire for the way they look. Beauty journalist Jessica DeFino dubs this emerging aesthetic the ‘meta face’: hyper-perfected, otherworldly and disturbingly devoid of human imperfection. Think flawless, textureless skin, exaggerated proportions and hyper-feminised features — an uncanny vision of beauty that is more simulation than reality.