AI models squeeze fashion modelling as brands seek rights to digital clones

AI-generated models let brands create lifelike images for their online stores at a cost 90% or more below a shoot with human models - and that is starting to upend the economics of fashion modelling, according to a Reuters investigation published by The Business of Fashion.

What Reuters found

Reuters interviewed 15 model-agency directors and reviewed more than a dozen confidential photo-shoot contracts in which brands including Diesel, Calvin Klein and L’Oréal set out proposed terms for AI use. The requests included:

• the right to swap a model’s face for another using AI;
• the creation of a digital clone with no extra pay for the model;
• the right to use images of a model’s body to train AI.

The unsigned contracts also contained broad legal language that could give a brand wide leeway in how it uses AI.

Who loses

Agencies report declining bookings and photo studios are closing. The hardest hit is e-commerce work - the constant shoots fast-fashion retailers commission as they add new collections to their websites, which made up a large share of many models’ income. With little regulation on who owns a digital twin, models face unpaid replication of their likeness or replacement by fully synthetic models, the report says. Among those quoted is Sara Ziff, a former model who founded the nonprofit Model Alliance.