How AI-Generated Images Are Changing Beauty Consultations
Poreless skin with a preternatural glow. Blonde highlights blended so well you can no longer see the individual strands. A nose that’s never even heard of a crook. A hand with individual, intricate tattoo “sleeves” on each finger. Manicures with textures and designs so complex they’d be impossible to recreate. Artificial intelligence has come for the beauty industry, and it seems many clients can’t resist the generative chatbots’ siren song. Experts across fields report a sharp increase in the number of AI-generated images their patients and clients are bringing as inspiration for the service they want provided.
“[Bringing AI-generated images] has become a normal part of the consultation,” says Melissa Doft, MD, a board-certified plastic surgeon based in New York. July, a Leicester, England-based tattoo artist who goes by @inkedbyjuls, says “Nearly 30% of my clients have reached out to me with AI-generated images as a reference for their tattoo ideas in recent months.” While some practitioners are OK with using these as a jumping off point—and understand that some clients who struggle with verbally explaining their vision might find chatbots helpful for translating that idea into an image—everyone we spoke to for this piece agrees that these artificially-generated visuals are largely just setting people up for disappointment.