Hi everyone, a piece of news from this week that is worth a few minutes of your time, especially if you shoot, cast or deliver AI images for clients. Reuters spoke with 15 model-agency directors and read more than a dozen confidential photo-shoot contracts from fashion and beauty brands. Some of the proposed terms: swapping a model's face onto another body, a digital replica the brand owns for a year with no extra pay, and using "reasonably unrecognizable" images of a model's body (no face, scars or tattoos) to train AI tools. The contracts were unsigned, and the brands replied differently: Diesel's parent OTB said its form was drafted for a specific campaign, Reale Actives said it works with real models, has not replicated any model with AI, and that the wording came from a partner production company it did not name, and Calvin Klein said that, like many others, it is testing and learning, guided by regulation and respect for models' rights. Still, agencies say they are flooded with AI requests. The reason is simple: AI e-commerce images promise production costs more than 90 percent lower than a shoot. Some retailers have already closed their photo studios. On the legal side, New York's Fashion Workers Act has required a model's explicit consent to create or alter a digital replica since June 2025. In the UK, the British Fashion Model Agents Association has an AI code of practice (consent first, the model owns the digital twin), but it is not binding, and there is no rule like it in Europe yet. What we take from it for our own work: - a real face needs written consent for that exact use, not "any future use" - read the AI clause before you sign, and before you send one to anyone else; watch for "including" and "not limited to" - check every generated face for resemblance to a real model before you publish - label AI images where a platform or the law asks for it That is also why the courses here that work with faces have a casting part: where the face comes from, who agreed, and what the licence covers.