Sophie Gable's Portfolio

As the threat of artificial intelligence for creatives looms large, one fashion model has decided to take matters into her own hands.

After years of grinding in the industry, Hannah James was finally getting the kind of recognition in magazines she had always dreamed of.

But suddenly, the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent rise of AI pushed her career into a disorienting halt. 

‘COVID was kind of the beginning of the decline of how much commission we were getting. And then AI came out, and it just dropped to where we’re making a quarter to 30 percent less than what we were making before,’ James told Daily Mail. 

‘I was thinking, okay, it’s gonna advance so fast, it’s gonna take us out. Like it’s gonna take everybody out,’ she added. 

Instead of rolling over and watching AI models replace her, James decided to hop on the trend and started working with an AI startup to license her image and likeness. 

Kartel.ai works with models and creatives to license their images and create ads using artificial intelligence. 

‘We recognized early on that the new AI tools were going to change how media is made,’ Ben Kusin, co-founder of Kartel, told Daily Mail. 

Hannah James decided to work with an AI startup to license her name, image, and likeness (Pictured: A real photo of Hannah James) 

James said that working with specialist AI firm Kartel has given her freedom to profit off of her image without having to endure the strain of physical shoots (Pictured: An AI-generated image of James created by the artists at Kartel) 

Instead of generating an ad completely using AI, Kartel collaborates with models, producers, and creative directors to create media featuring human talent from the industry. 

‘Brands and businesses can pick a model, select how they want to work with them, license them, and then we will go build a campaign with them in it,’ Kusin explained. 

‘And the models don’t even need to show up to the campaign. They can have approvals, they can look at it. We can take whatever looks they want, work with creative directors, and make really cool stuff’.

Kartel’s process eliminates the time, money, and human variability of a practical shoot. 

Instead of picking a location, hiring a crew, and shooting for multiple hours a day, Kartel can do it all with AI tools in a fraction of the time. 

If the model a brand wants to work with is out sick or fully booked for the month, the company can still hire them without even meeting in person. 

Kartel builds LoRA (Low-Rank Adaptation) models, which train AI to recognize objects or people, allowing their images to be used in advertisements. 

‘We have a team that manipulates the image and creates a video around it with her permission. And so we can create 32 second ads, 62 second ads, [and] stills,’ Kusin said. 

James told Daily Mail that when she finally started booking gigs, the COVID-19 pandemic and rise of AI halted her career, so she decided to do something about it (Pictured: An AI-generated image of James created by the artists at Kartel) 

Ben Kusin (right) told Daily Mail that Kartel wants to use the technology of AI to enhance human creativity, working with real people at every turn (Pictured: Co-founders of Kartel, Luke Peterson, CEO, and Ben Kusin, CSO)  

‘That’s how we do it. It’s humans that do it. They just happen to be using AI tools, and we call them 10x creatives, because they move 10 times faster and have limitless creativity. And they’re not bound by the confines of what’s called a practical shoot, which is shooting with cameras and film’.

James said she was ‘excited’ about the prospects of using AI as a tool in her industry, pointing out that it allows her to be in multiple places at once. 

She added that the modeling industry can be physically and mentally draining, so having the ability to still make a profit on her image without physically attending the shoot is beneficial for her. 

‘I think that this is a really cool opportunity to be able to monetize what we do and still be able to make money, make it fast, and actually get paid whenever we’re supposed to get paid,’ James said. 

Kusin said it’s still early to draw comparisons between the compensation for a model participating in a practical shoot versus the commission they receive from an AI-generated image, but the rates are comparable. 

AI-generated modeling is beyond photos going viral on social media; the phenomenon is slowly morphing into an industry of its own. 

Companies like FanPro, Lalaland.ai, Deep Agency, and The Diigitals have centered their business around AI models. 

High-fashion brands like Guess have featured AI-generated models in recent ad campaigns, which have even appeared in the August issue of Vogue. 

The campaign received swift backlash for not employing actual models and perpetuating an unattainable beauty standard. 

Kartel.ai allows AI creators to produce cutting-edge content

AI is here to stay 

Despite the scrutiny, experts in the field believe that this trend will continue to accelerate rapidly.

Nell Watson, a fellow at Singularity University and author of Taming the Machine: Ethically Harness the Power of AI, told the Daily Mail that she expects traditional modeling will eventually become extinct. 

Watson said she anticipates that luxury brands will continue to use their models, but smaller clothing stores, especially fast fashion brands, will start opting for AI-generated images instead. 

Like Kusin, Watson noted that utilizing AI can significantly reduce costs and expedite content creation. 

AI also offers a broader range of choices for brands, so instead of finding and casting a diverse set of models to showcase their clothes, artificial intelligence can do it for them. 

Watson added that, although opting to use AI can enhance accessibility and affordability, there’s the consequence of job loss. 

AI-generated images in modeling campaigns aren’t just a prediction for the future; they’re already happening and were featured in a Guess campaign 

The fashion brand, Guess, used AI models in a recent campaign, and the images were used in the August issue of Vogue 

A Stanford study released in August found that adoption of generative AI has resulted in a 13 percent decline in employment for early-career workers. 

Kusin acknowledged that the adoption of AI in any sector inevitably results in job loss, but argued that Hollywood had already begun producing fewer shows and ads before the technology became widely used.  

‘What we’re trying to do is help reskill the creative folks to understand what it means to be in an AI world and offer those creatives opportunities,’ he explained. 

‘It’s a human-led process, human scripting, humans do the storyboards, humans do the editing, humans do the layout. It’s just that middle part where you’re looking at the generation of the media that will involve people using machines versus the people holding another machine, which is a camera’.

Kartel emphasizes the importance of licensing the model’s name, image, and likeness, so that they can be compensated for their work.

Kusin warned that other companies may not adhere to a similar ethical code and instead rely on generation, rather than working directly with creatives. 

Promo for Kartel.ai shows the amazing creations developed by the AI

‘Wild west’ era 

Legal safeguards preventing companies from stealing a model’s look for an AI ad or attempting to deceive audiences by using generated images instead of real people are still in their infancy. 

Various laws already exist to protect copyright and trademarks, but there are no direct legal standards for how companies can implement AI. 

Technological advancements far outpace bureaucratic processes, resulting in a gap where innovation often progresses without legal safeguards. 

Watson referred to the interim as the ‘wild west period’ where innovations in technology advance without regulations, adding that it can take a minimum of three to five years for laws to be put in place. 

‘A model’s level of protection over their image and likeness largely depends on their recognition and commercial success,’ Yelena Ambartsumian, founder of AMBART LAW, a firm focusing on Privacy, AI Governance, and Intellectual Property Law, in New York City, told Daily Mail. 

‘Less recognized models and people starting out, without strong representation, often have little to no bargaining power in contracts or the means to understand the implications of what they are agreeing to’. 

There are two scenarios when creating an AI image. The first is to create a hyper-realistic digital replica of a real person, which is what Kartel does with the models they work with. 

The second, however, occurs when the image is created using variations and amalgamations of existing content on the internet. 

Guess’s AI-powered campaign resulted in swift backlash, but experts in the field warned that this trend will only rapidly accelerate in the near future 

AI hasn’t yet advanced to the point of outpacing human intelligence, so the technology is typically trained on publicly available content.

Ambartsumian explained that if a model believes an AI-generated image of them was used in a marketing campaign without their consent, it can be increasingly difficult to prove if the content isn’t a hyper-realistic digital replica. 

She added that there is currently a ‘patchwork’ of laws that can be used to litigate the unwarranted use of AI-generated images. 

The Lanham Act is a federal law that establishes trademarks and prohibits the use of false endorsements. 

If a campaign uses an AI-generated image of an A-list model without their approval, they would have the right to sue under the federal law. 

However, lesser-known models would have to navigate state laws on the right of privacy and publicity, according to Ambartsumian.  

‘On the extreme end, we may get to the point where human models become redundant, as the technology continues to advance and synthetic images and videos become more and more realistic,’ she added. 

Kusin said he anticipates runway shows will continue and doesn’t want to see a future where everything is AI-generated. 

‘When AI can itself generate an entire 60-minute show or an hour and a half movie that is fully AI conceived, shot, edited, etc., we need to be having bigger conversations about humans’ coexistence with the machine,’ he added. 

‘Let’s try to make the goal to have good entertainment, good storytelling. Let’s focus on narratives and let’s all try to be good people in this process’. 

Originally published with the Daily Mail on September 7, 2025

Read originally published article here