The Supermodel Who Doesn't Exist

A TikTok creator spotted the telltale signs and posted an expose. 2.7 million views. The comment section split immediately: outrage from one camp, fascination from another. Boycott calls followed.

This is the creative industries in 2025. Divided, accelerating, and deeply uncomfortable.

Guess didn't hide what they were doing, but they didn't exactly announce it either. The AI models appeared alongside human models in a Vogue spread. At a glance, you couldn't tell the difference. That's the point, and that's the problem.

E-commerce modelling is now considered one of the professions most exposed to AI automation. The economics are straightforward: a human model requires booking, travel, hair, makeup, wardrobe, studio time, retouching, and usage rights. An AI model requires a text prompt and a few minutes of compute. For catalogue photography, where the goal is showing clothes on a body rather than conveying personality, the cost difference is overwhelming.

The backlash is real too. Fashion has always been about aspiration, identity, and human beauty. Replacing that with generated pixels feels like a betrayal to many consumers. The boycott calls aren't performative. They reflect a genuine discomfort with a world where the person selling you clothes was never a person at all.

While fashion argues about AI models, the music industry has moved to a different phase entirely.

Suno, an AI music generation platform, hit 100 million users and a $2.4 billion valuation. You type a description, pick a genre, and Suno produces a complete song with vocals, instrumentation, and production quality that ranges from "surprisingly decent" to "genuinely good."

Warner Music and Universal Music Group both reached settlements with AI music platforms after months of legal battles. The terms vary, but the direction is clear: the major labels have decided that licensing AI-generated music is more profitable than fighting it.

Google's Veo 3 can generate 4K video with synchronised dialogue from a text prompt. Not a tech demo. A production tool. Creators are using it for short-form content, music videos, and social media ads.

The creative industries are splitting along a fault line, and the divide runs through every studio, agency, and production company.

Camp one: fight it. AI-generated content is theft. It was trained on human work without consent. Using it devalues creative labour. The correct response is regulation, litigation, and collective refusal. This camp includes many working artists, illustrators, voice actors, and musicians whose livelihoods are directly threatened.

Camp two: use it. AI is a tool. Like Photoshop was a tool. Like digital audio workstations were tools. The artists who thrive will be the ones who learn to direct AI rather than compete with it. This camp includes many producers, creative directors, and indie creators who see AI as a way to punch above their weight.

Both camps have legitimate arguments. That's what makes this so difficult.

I work in design. I use AI tools daily. I also understand why illustrators who spent years developing their craft feel betrayed when a model trained on their work can approximate their style in seconds.

The uncomfortable truth is that both things are real at the same time. AI tools make me better and faster at my job. AI tools also threaten the economic viability of skills I deeply respect.

What I've seen in practice: the designers and creatives who are thriving are the ones with strong creative direction skills. They know what good looks like. They can evaluate, iterate, and push AI output beyond its default mediocrity. The tool generates options. The human makes decisions.

That's not nothing. But it does change the value equation. Execution skill matters less. Taste, judgement, and creative vision matter more. For some creatives, that's a promotion. For others, it removes the very thing they were best at.