Fashion Founder Emily Oberg Says She Tried Using AI for Photo Shoots, and It Was a Failure Because It Will “Never Possess Good Taste” Like Humans Do

Fashion founder Emily Oberg has declared that artificial intelligence (AI) will never be capable of developing good taste, which is something she discovered firsthand during her experiments using AI to generate e-commerce images for her fashion and lifestyle brand Sporty & Rich. Oberg, who founded Sporty & Rich in 2018, shared her findings on her Substack, Substack Emily Loves, discussing the limitations of AI in capturing the unique, human-like taste and style that she believes is essential for her brand.

The fashion and lifestyle brand, which emphasizes a "health is wealth" ethos, had been using AI-generated imagery to cut costs on e-commerce shoots, which can cost upwards of $200,000 for each twice-yearly shoot. However, Oberg found that AI-generated images lacked the lifeless, flat, and mediocre quality that her team of human photographers could produce.

The AI models, which learn from vast amounts of data but lack lived experiences, failed to capture the feeling and emotion that Oberg believes is integral to the success of her brand. Consequently, Oberg has returned to using human photographers for her e-commerce imagery, emphasizing that only humans can truly possess good taste and set trends without relying on algorithms or AI.

This experiment highlights the current limitations of AI in the creative world and raises questions about whether other brands will continue to prioritize human touch over cost-cutting through AI.