“I believe it even if they say it’s a comic illustration, it’s so fake that I dare not buy it!” A buyer sighed while looking at a picture of a model from an e-commerce platform merchant. The model in the picture has red lips, white teeth, and skin as smooth as gel, and the clothes on her body seem to have been added. The soft light filter made it difficult to see the details. "The head-to-body ratio was a bit weird, but when I asked customer service, it turned out to be AI-generated." With the continuous development of large models represented by ChatGPT, sora, etc., AI-generated business photos can be seen everywhere on various e-commerce platforms. During the "Double Eleven" period, many consumers found that when purchasing seasonal clothes, some AI-generated model pictures could not clearly see the materials and styles, and could not provide real reference value. "The models look the same, have the same posture, and even the folds of the clothes are the same." Ms. Lou, a Beijing resident, said while looking at a women's clothing product page. The model pictures of the six sets of dresses in the store are all very similar. In the pictures, the model is lying on the sofa. The movements and backgrounds of the models in the six sets of clothes are exactly the same. Even the positions of light and shadow are exactly the same. Only the clothes on the body change.
The AI model picture displayed on the page of a women's clothing store
"This is obviously generated by AI. When you click on it, there is no display of more product details, not even a picture of the actual product." Ms. Lou clicked on the product details page and swiped left and right, only to find that it was all The same AI model image after flipping and cropping. “I can’t see the silhouette, let alone the material, or even how long the skirt is.” Ms. Lou said helplessly that these AI-generated model pictures have lost their reference significance. The reporter searched on major e-commerce platforms using keywords such as "early autumn women's clothing" and found that many merchants' promotional pictures were obviously pictures of AI models. The general characteristics of the AI model pictures are that the model's facial features are exquisite, the texture of the clothes is relatively vague, and the details of some model pictures such as hands and feet are unreasonable.
The AI model pictures have weird hand details
. Reporters noticed that in a women's clothing store with over 100,000 fans, the product details page was almost entirely filled with AI model pictures. The customer service said: "Because some of the clothes are new products and the factory has not provided detailed pictures, so AI is used to generate pictures." The reporter placed an order for a top-selling shirt in the store, but after it arrived, he found that it was very different from the promotional picture. The color and collar position don't match.
The pictures used by many stores are very similar
. Currently, stores on e-commerce platforms such as Taobao, Pinduoduo, and Xiaohongshu do not provide obvious prompts and labels for AI model pictures, and consumers need to distinguish them by themselves. The reporter asked several stores that obviously use AI model pictures. Some merchants readily admitted that the model pictures were produced by AI. However, most of the merchants' customer service said that they "did not know the specific situation", "we are not responsible for this part of the business" and "it depends on the individual effects." wait. Why are businesses keen on using AI model pictures? The reporter learned that the store’s commercial photography expenses consist of photographers, venue rental, hiring models, and post-production art. An in-depth report on the AI industry previously released by Northeast Securities stated that according to research, stores spend an average of about 20,000 to 100,000 yuan on commercial auctions each year, among which the cost of models accounts for a relatively high proportion of commercial auctions. Wu Haibo, general manager of weshop, the first domestic AI commercial photography application, said that AI-generated model pictures can shorten the new product launch cycle and greatly reduce costs for merchants. The current AI commercial auction price on this platform is equivalent to about 3.5 yuan per finished film. "We have also been iterating and updating the algorithm so that the AI-generated model pictures can show the real effect of the upper body of the clothes." Wu Haibo said frankly that some merchants on the current e-commerce platform use relatively rough AI-generated pictures, which has poor results and has also frustrated many consumers. Some people have misunderstandings about AI commercial auctions. He believes that with the continuous development and improvement of AI technology, it will bring new changes to the entire e-commerce workflow and gradually form new thresholds and driving forces. "AI commercial photography is the general trend. It can save stores the cost of offline photography and improve work efficiency." Zhu Wei, vice president of the Beijing E-commerce Legal Research Association, affirmed the application prospects of AI technology in the e-commerce field, but he reminded , Merchants using AI-generated images should clearly inform consumers that AI technology should be used to show real product effects. At the same time, e-commerce platforms need to standardize the use of AI-generated model images by merchants to provide consumers with a good shopping environment.
