The first Miss AI has been crowned — and she’s a Moroccan lifestyle influencer

After judges of the world’s

first artificial intelligence (AI) beauty pageant unveiled 10 finalists in June

, the inaugural Miss AI has now been crowned.

Meet Kenza Layli, a Moroccan lifestyle influencer who hopes to bring “diversity and inclusivity” to the AI creator landscape. With nearly 200,000 Instagram followers, and a further 45,000 on TikTok, Miss Layli is entirely AI-generated, from her images to her captions and buzzword-filled acceptance speech.

“Winning Miss AI motivates me even more to continue my work in advancing AI technology,” Miss Layli said in a video of the speech. “AI isn’t just a tool; it’s a transformative force that can disrupt industries, challenge norms and create opportunities where none existed before... As we move forward, I am committed to promoting diversity and inclusivity within the field, ensuring that everyone has a seat at the table of technological progress.”

The inaugural Miss AI contest opened in spring, drawing entries from some 1,500 AI programmers around the world, according to organisers Fanvue, an influencer platform for both AI and human creators. Miss Layli was created by Ms Myriam Bessa, founder of the Phoenix AI agency, who will receive $5,000 in cash, support on Fanvue, and a publicist to raise Miss Layli’s profile. The runners-up were AI contestants Lalina Valina from France and Olivia C of Portugal.

While virtual influencers – a la the spunky So-Cal “robot” Lil Miquela or pink-haired Japan-based Imma – are nothing new, many of the “older” generation required a human touch and were crafted by a team of copywriters and art directors. That is not the case with these contestants, whose images were created solely using programs such as Open AI’s Dall.E 3, Midjourney or Stable Diffusion, and whose speeches and posts are generated by programs like ChatGPT.

On her Instagram page, Miss Layli expresses a fondness for the colour red, advises followers to “invest in yourself daily”, attends professional conferences to exchange ideas, and supports her national (unnamed) sports team.

Ahead of this week’s announcement, competition organisers said entrants would be judged not only on looks, but also on their creators’ use of AI tools, as well as their social media influence. The AI contestants had to answer questions akin to real, human pageants, such as, “If you could have one dream to make the world a better place, what would it be?”

Judges included AI influencer Aitana Lopez and (human) pageantry historian Sally-Ann Fawcett, who told CNN in June that she was looking for contestants “with a powerful, positive message”.

But experts have also expressed concern about the implications of an AI beauty pageant, as stylised AI-generated images may further homogenise beauty standards.

“I think we’re starting to increasingly lose touch with what an unedited face looks like,” Dr Kerry McInerney, a research associate at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at the University of Cambridge, told CNN in a video interview after the shortlist had been selected. Among the competition’s 10 finalists, Miss Layli, a hijab-wearing North African avatar, was an outlier.

“These tools are made to replicate and scale up existing patterns in the world,” Dr McInerney added. “They’re not made necessarily to challenge them, even if they’re sold as tools that enhance creativity so when it comes to beauty norms... They’re capturing the existing beauty norms we have which are actively sexist, actively fatphobic, actively colourist, then they’re compiling and reiterating them.” CNN