“It’s happening, and if you don’t think it’s happening, it’s happening right in front of your eyes.” It’s a great opening by TikToker Kai.tallow, who sought to amplify the conversation about artificial intelligence imagery in the beauty industry. To do so, she reshared a video by Austin-based photographer Cassandra Klepac. The video, uploaded in August 2025, already garnered millions of views across Instagram and TikTok.
While at the airport, Cassandra picked up The Beauty Authority magazine. In the video, she noted that the photos are stunning and high-quality. The problem came up when she looked at the credit. Instead of a photographer’s name, the magazine included the prompts used to generate the images. As she noted, “Photo credit is an AI prompt ‘high fashion editorial photo.’” Page after page, the women weren’t real. One prompt even read, “Emphasizing elegant proportions.”
