Winning contestant Kenza Layli | Fanvue World AI Creator Awards

Among 1,500 artificial intelligence (AI) entries, Moroccan candidate Kenza Layli rose to the top and was crowned the world’s first-ever Miss AI.

“I am very grateful to have this opportunity to thank the creators of artificial intelligence and passionately defend the positive impact of artificial intelligence. This was evidence of the power of innovation, collaboration, and raising the bar to shape our future,” were Layli’s words as she expressed her excitement and appreciation after winning the award.

Getting to know the inaugural Miss AI

Kenza Layli is a 33-year-old activist and lifestyle influencer developed by the Moroccan company Pheonix AI. Since her first public appearance in December 2023, she has amassed over 200,000 followers on both Instagram and TikTok with her “engaging content” that “is closely tied to Moroccan society.”

As a completely AI-generated celebrity, her images, videos, audio, and captions online were created using various automated technologies, including OpenAI’s DALL·E 3 and ChatGPT, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion. Despite this, Layli shares resemblances with real-life influencers, as she also aims “to contribute to the empowerment of women in Morocco and the Middle East while also bringing much-needed regulation to the influencer market.”

With Layli’s victory in the beauty pageant, her developers also received multiple prizes. Led by Meriam Bessa, founder of Phoenix AI, they took home $5,000 in cash, $3,000 worth of “imagine creator mentorship program,” and another $5,000 worth of public relations support.

In a video speech, this year’s Miss AI stated that her success has motivated her to continue working to advance AI technology.

Pageantry in Virtual Reality

Making history as the first of its kind, the virtual beauty pageant was part of the World AI Creator Awards (WAICAs) and was organized by content creation platform Fanvue.

Ahead of the announcement of the winner, the top 10 finalists were revealed from thousands of entrants who were judged in terms of beauty realism, technology, and social clout.

The board of judges was composed of two human personalities, particularly media advisor Andrew Bloch and beauty pageant historian Sally-Ann Fawcett, as well as two AI-generated influencers, Atiana Lopez and Emily Pellegrini.

Trailing behind Morocco’s Kenza Layli was French virtual influencer Lalina, who finished as first runner-up with a $5,000 prize. Meanwhile, the third runner-up title and $2,000 award went to Olivia C of Portugal.

Perpetuating Harmful Beauty Standards

WAICAs already stressed that Miss AI was about celebrating diversity and realism, saying that the pageant is not about pushing unrealistic standards but realistic creators representing real people.

However, experts remain worried and continue raising concerns about how AI-generated images produced in this virtual platform may “homogenize” beauty standards.

Soon after the finalists were announced, which showed Layli as the sole hijab-wearing North African candidate, Dr. Kerry McInerney of the University of Cambridge talked to CNN about how AI tools are made to replicate and scale up existing patterns.

“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 colorist, then they’re compiling and reiterating them,” she added.