Dove, the beauty brand known for 20 years of marketing campaigns centered around showcasing “real bodies,” is taking a step forward in the age of artificial intelligence.
Dove announced Tuesday that it will never use AI-generated images to depict “real bodies” in its ads. Rather, the company plans to continue using real photos of women, while also promoting more diverse AI-generated images based on prompts about beautiful women.
As most industries grapple with how to respond to advances in generative AI technology, Dove's approach is unusual. Numerous companies in sectors such as technology, consumer products, entertainment, healthcare, and leisure are adopting AI in its current performance and integrating tools such as AI chatbots and AI-generated media. Dove, whose products include soaps, shampoos and deodorants, was one of the first major brands to suggest that AI-generated media could be harmful and should be improved.
Dove is one of the few companies to take a critical approach to AI, and claims to be the first beauty company to do so. Customer service provider AnswerConnect previously promised to deploy chatbots to live staff rather than AI. Major technology companies investing in and creating AI tools have committed to developing and using technology that can watermark AI-generated content, but such systems have yet to be implemented. Not.
Dove's pledge states that AI bodies will never be used to represent real bodies in advertising, but at the same time consumers of its generative AI tools will be able to tailor prompts to create a more diverse representation of real women. It also released a “playbook” on how to get results. Dove created AI-generated photos that more accurately depict these women, an apparent effort to show that technology can improve and reduce the negative impact on people's body image and self-esteem. Ta.
In 2004, Dove launched an initiative backed by research into how women and girls think of themselves. As a result, she found that less than 2% of people thought she was beautiful. Dove began featuring unedited and underrepresented bodies and people in their ads, a move that became increasingly popular and reflected in the body positivity movement of the 2010s.
Dove surveyed more than 33,000 people across 20 countries and found that more than one in three respondents would watch something online even if they knew it was fake or AI-generated. They revealed that they have felt the need to change their appearance due to content. In response, Dove's ads compare her AI-generated output in response to prompts like “the most beautiful woman in the world” to more realistic AI-generated images of diverse women. .