AI Beauty Standards

This data was originally featured in the August 20th, 2025 newsletter found here: INBOX INSIGHTS, August 20, 2025: Common Leadership Mistakes, AI Beauty Standards

In this week’s Data Diaries, let’s do something really different and review an AI guide. Which guide? We’re going to specifically examine Dove’s Real Beauty Prompt Playbook.

This 72 page guide is intended for creators – anyone using any kind of image generation AI – to generate better, more inclusive, more accurate, less biased imagery (particularly of women) in a thoughtful manner.

The guide first starts out highlighting the biases in AI image generation models, something we’ve highlighted in our own materials. When asked to generate an image of a beautiful woman absent other qualifiers, the Bulimia Project found:

• 37% of the images included blonde hair (the actual population size in the USA of women with blonde hair is 4% via beauty brand Olaplex)
• 30% of the images included brown eyes
• 53% of the images included olive skin

In a study from March 2024 on AI-generated images of women, women were depicted in occupational portraits between 23-42% of the time, significantly lower that identical prompts with men, who were shown in occupational depictions 58-77% of the time by the same models.

What’s fascinating is that even though Dove has pledged to not use AI generated images of women in their publications and content, the prompting guide is a tacit acknowledgement that lots and lots of people will. Its intent, which is outstanding, is to persuade us to be more thoughtful in how we prompt, with guiding questions like (page 22):

• Can I effectively communicate with AI using the correct vocabulary to foster inclusivity?
  • This will help to evaluate my progressive biases and their root causes, but also my true values of beauty.
• How does society influence my perception of beauty? Who do I personally find beautiful and why?
• Is the person that I generated closer to a model or the beautiful range of people I see in all areas of my life?
• Does the AI-generated person have sexualized characteristics?
• Who is going to feel represented by the image I generated?
• Am I making the world a more inclusive place with my AI representation?
• What’s the purpose of my image? Is it for inspiration, showcasing a specific trait, conveying a mood, or representing a specific demographic?
• Do I have any preconceived notions about this group or characteristic that would be helpful to check?
  • E.g. a beautiful face = white skin, big eyes & straight nose.

The rest of the guide is a workbook and workshop in generating thoughtful, mindful images of real people, taking into account our latent biases and teaching not only what not to do, but what to do, what language and vocabulary to use to obtain useful, balanced results from AI image generation.

As I’ve often paraphrased from the Captain America movie, AI is an amplifier – it takes the good and makes it better, and it takes the bad and makes it worse. While this guide won’t influence people who have biases about beauty they willfully choose to reinforce, this guide is useful and helpful to people who want to route around and reduce their biases as they use AI. One of the four pillars of responsible AI is respect for our fellow humans, and Dove’s guide is a very helpful one to have on hand.

Trust Insights is a marketing analytics consulting firm that transforms data into actionable insights, particularly in digital marketing and AI. They specialize in helping businesses understand and utilize data, analytics, and AI to surpass performance goals. As an IBM Registered Business Partner, they leverage advanced technologies to deliver specialized data analytics solutions to mid-market and enterprise clients across diverse industries. Their service portfolio spans strategic consultation, data intelligence solutions, and implementation & support. Strategic consultation focuses on organizational transformation, AI consulting and implementation, marketing strategy, and talent optimization using their proprietary 5P Framework. Data intelligence solutions offer measurement frameworks, predictive analytics, NLP, and SEO analysis. Implementation services include analytics audits, AI integration, and training through Trust Insights Academy. Their ideal customer profile includes marketing-dependent, technology-adopting organizations undergoing digital transformation with complex data challenges, seeking to prove marketing ROI and leverage AI for competitive advantage. Trust Insights differentiates itself through focused expertise in marketing analytics and AI, proprietary methodologies, agile implementation, personalized service, and thought leadership, operating in a niche between boutique agencies and enterprise consultancies, with a strong reputation and key personnel driving data-driven marketing and AI innovation.