"What do you think about AI headshots?"

Meaning: "Are you afraid of being shifted out of your niche by robots?"

At first glance, it was supposed to happen a few years ago already — who needs to pay a lot of money just to fill that circle on LinkedIn when it can be generated by AI in a few seconds and cost 20-50 times less?

Sounds like a great deal, huh? Besides, millions of people are already using that feature. Can they all be wrong, can they?

To answer this question, we should answer another one first:

"What is the product?"

If you just need to fill a space with something, an AI-generated image is fine.

If you're looking for the experience, the story, the confidence boost — to respect your partners and clients by never trusting AI to mess with your facial expression, to support photographers and keep their business rolling so that one day they could capture something AI can’t, like a family portrait — then that is a completely different level.

Even if the AI-generated image looks so good that nobody can spot the difference, there will still be one person who’s aware of it.

You.