Diedrichs said teenagers can be influenced but they are also often “critical and aware, and have more knowledge about technology than older people”.
“The thing is, though, we can be aware that these things are happening, but it doesn’t necessarily stop us from wanting to look like those images,” she said.
She said she recommended asking if the images or advertising is “serving you, does that make you feel good about yourself? Does it make you feel inspired, lit up?”
“If it’s making you feel lacking, that’s a really important signal to pay attention to, and suggests that maybe this isn’t for me to be looking at.”
Diedrichs said AI models in advertising could enable small brands to have a large number of diverse models, or global brands to advertise in multiple markets.
“There could be these benefits for diversity,” she said.
However, she noted the “knock on effect to creative industries and people working in this space. I would never like to see AI completely replace” the artistry and creativity of humans.
“As a consumer, you have a lot of power as well. You can express your views on this in the comment section,” she said. “Brands will see.”
Zoe Lee and Hannah Marriott, researchers at Cardiff Business School said AI-generation fashion models and digital twins, virtual replicas of real models are becoming more common.
Brands such as Balmain, Levi’s and H&M have experimented with the technology, they said.
But Lee and Marriott’s research has found that consumers often reacted negatively to AI-generated models once they realised they were not real.
In focus groups, participants told them they would “rather have a real person and way less people representing us, but they be real”, arguing AI models could never reflect lived experience.
Marriott said they also found people would “emotionally detach themselves” from images once they discovered they had been generated by AI.
H&M said it worked with real models in 2025 to make “digital representations/twins of the models” who “themselves retained full control and ownership of their digital twin”.
However this “exploration was paused during spring 2025” to consider the next steps.
Balmain, Levi’s, TikTok, Meta and Google were contacted for comment.
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