transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] I think it's time to learn about AI. The thing I've learned about technology is if you don't get a little bit of understanding from the very beginning, it just speeds past you.

Speaker 2:
[00:12] As AI companies drain our resources, displace workers and become increasingly intertwined with the US war machine, the biggest AI companies in Silicon Valley are waging an aggressive PR campaign to fix AI's image. In the past year, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Meta have sharply pivoted their messaging on AI to capture more female audiences. AI is suddenly being sold to women, especially mothers and teen girls, as helpful, creative and aesthetic tools that can be woven seamlessly into everyday life. The goal is to shift perception of AI away from existential risk and labor displacement towards an idea of AI as a lifestyle accessory that aids in self-expression and convenience. To discuss all of this, I have Kat Tenbarge here, author of Spitfire News. Today, we're going to be talking about the AI industry's pinkwashed PR pivot, how it happened, who is engineering it, and what the AI girly pop era is designed to distract us from. Kat, welcome to Power User.

Speaker 3:
[01:16] Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 2:
[01:18] So we are two women, two white women, two, I would say, like, upwardly mobile white women, which makes us an incredibly valuable demographic for AI companies. And before we get started, I'm curious how often you use AI products.

Speaker 3:
[01:34] That's a good question. I very rarely use AI because I am like an AI hater.

Speaker 2:
[01:39] Well, these companies are spending billions of dollars to change that. And you're not alone, actually. According to analytics from the company SimilarWeb, ChatGPT's global user base skewed roughly 65 percent male in the first two years of its launch. Microsoft, LinkedIn, Work Index found that men are adopting AI tools at significantly higher rates than women. I feel like AI generally is very male coded and it's very male dominated. And as somebody that does use AI, don't shoot me, but I'm a tech reporter and I use everything. I actually think that reporting on consumer technology that you yourself don't use in some capacity is irresponsible. That does not mean that I'm AI generating. I don't know, slop all day. But I feel like I try to use it for enough day-to-day things. Like I use ChatGPT for recipes all the time. And I try to integrate it into my life in a way that is similar to, I think, how consumers would be experiencing it in order to report on it accurately. But a lot of women don't feel this way. And I think a lot of women feel intimidated by it. They don't use it. And this is a huge, huge problem for AI companies.

Speaker 3:
[02:51] It's interesting because when I think back to, like when AI first started to be something that I feel like was culturally relevant, specifically like generative AI, it doesn't surprise me that men have clung onto it first. Because if you look at the breakdown of people who are interested in computer science and like emerging technology, and who are interested in coding and things like this, like these are very male dominated fields and like interests and part of the reason for that is because men like push women out of these fields when they start to show interest in them and when they start to compete with them, especially in the job market and like at the academic level. So some of the earliest stories I heard about AI back in like 2018, were stories of like male computer science students, sort of using AI to harass their female classmates and things like that. So it doesn't surprise me that the roots sort of led into who culturally has accepted it more broadly.

Speaker 2:
[03:49] It's interesting that you mentioned like this sort of male history in tech and that the sort of the gender split in tech. I mean, I feel like this is true even in tech reporting, right? There are very few women tech reporters generally compared to men. But it is there's always this sort of like paradox around consumer technology because consumer technology traditionally does not break through without female adoption. And we've seen that throughout history. And actually a lot of really famous male tech executives have talked about this. Even if you just go back to the iPod in the early 2000s, the iPod was initially seen when it launched as this like gadget for music nerds. And women actually preferred these like kind of more aesthetic NP3 players like the Zoon or I don't know, they all had these weird names. But when Apple was able to position it as this like sleek fashion accessory, women started to adopt it. Same thing with the same like iconic Apple earbuds. You saw that exact same path happened with the iPhone, which was this sort of gadget to this like cultural fashion accessory. Apple was very early on this sort of targeting women consumers. But even when you look at like services, you know, through the tech boom of the 2010, you see that these products never break through until they get female adoption. Social media was 100% driven by teen girls. Using it, Spotify and music streaming services were driven by playlist culture, which was very much driven by women and this sort of like social and emotional work of creating playlists. Airbnb actually did not have much traction at all until it was positioned as this thing that women could use to stay in another woman's house or go on a girl's trip or rent this like aesthetic place that you can post about on Instagram and have more this like experiential aspect to it. So I just think it's funny that we see this time and time again, same thing with wearables and fitness trackers, which were seen as this like nerdy male coded thing, rebranded to female empowerment, women's fitness, especially millennial women. They started to see these things as like accessories and not just tech devices.

Speaker 3:
[05:56] That also like to me feels like such a repeating story throughout tech history where it's like Facebook didn't take off culturally until women adopted it and started using it. But then if you look at the history of Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg and why he founded Facebook, it's like men create technology in a way where oftentimes it's very antagonistic toward women, like Facebook obviously very misogynistic in the beginning, used to rate and compare women. But these technologies cannot actually become profitable or valuable or like have mainstream appeal until women more often than not are the ones injecting like heart and soul into social media, like using them in a very social way instead of in these oftentimes very like antisocial capacities.

Speaker 2:
[06:42] Well, also I just think of like laptops, like which were seen as this like clunky black Dell, like you know nobody wanted to carry their like clunky. And listen, women had laptops. I had a laptop obviously in high school and stuff. But like it wasn't until Mac, like remember the Mac, the original sort of like Mac laptop from like Legally Blonde where you could get it in pink and it looked aesthetic. Even just the iMac with the like beautiful clear shell that you could get in different colors and cell phones like Razer, right? Like rebranding for like the Charlie's Angels version and the pink version. And obviously there's a lot of like pink washing that happens in consumer tech. But I think women, I mean, you mentioned social media, which women drove and were responsible for essentially the success of. And this is because women have a few things that make them really, really valuable to these tech companies. Number one, they have extremely high social interactions, so they're much more likely to recommend products to others. They're much more likely to view their technology as sort of an extension of their own aesthetic that they're curating. And they're much more in touch with like trends and sort of like have these dense peer groups where they share trends and discuss trends more frequently than men. And I do think that that's changed over the years, especially when you look at Gen Z men who have leaned more into like aesthetics and adoption and stuff like that. But overwhelmingly, this is just like female behavior across like cultures, across everything. Like globally, I think that these trends persist when you look at consumer technology.

Speaker 3:
[08:09] That makes so much sense. And it's like, this is something that I feel like I learned from you, Taylor, because you've written about this so much. But women have been foundational to internet culture. So in addition to the technology products themselves and who is buying them, are they being used as accessories in hardware form? But also when it comes to just the cultural relevance of all of these innovations, women repeatedly and marginalized groups repeatedly are at the forefront of all of these things.

Speaker 2:
[08:40] I think of something too, just like Amazon Echo and even like, I mean, you mentioned hearing about AI in 2018. The first time I started to hear about sort of early AI technology was through these smart home devices, which could do like smart shopping lists, et cetera. And I mean, the shopping list example is actually something that was that targeted me as a woman. Like, I think for a while people were struggling to understand, like, why would I put this ever listening speaker in my house? And it wasn't until Amazon made this sort of intentional pivot towards women who control 85% of household purchasing decisions, where they were like, hey, use this for, you know, timers when you're cooking, shopping lists, recipes, music, you know, your child can talk to it. And of course, listen, men can operate in the domestic realm as well. But this is these are all areas that are sort of traditionally dominated by women. And so that got smart home devices into everyone's home.

Speaker 3:
[09:32] That reminds me so much of the Amazon Alexa Super Bowl ad this year, which like it's now Alexa plus AI. But in that ad, it's Chris Hemsworth. And he is portrayed as this character who's like very scared of AI. And his wife is portrayed as someone who already uses AI to do like domestic tasks in the home. And over the course of the commercial, it's like what sways Chris Hemsworth is he's like, oh, it can book me a massage, which is obviously a very feminine coded task. So it's like, it's so fascinating how that exact through line carries through so much of the advertising.

Speaker 2:
[10:09] Well, that's exactly what I want to talk about today, which is these massive, I would say slightly evil, AI tech conglomerates aggressively moving to target women. And this is something that has escalated so much in the past year, especially. So in line with that, first, what is the hot girl economy?

Speaker 3:
[10:27] I mean, the hot girl economy is basically just like the entire multi-billion-dollar industry built around women's self-optimization. So like beauty, lifestyle, fashion, cosmetics, all of these different things that are inherently woman-coded in our consumer industries where women not just like dominate, but make up the vast majority of the pie.

Speaker 2:
[10:49] Yeah. I think of like, I mean, people talk about the hot girl economy of like, hot girls are really valuable. Like they're very valuable brand ambassadors. They're very valuable sort of like influencers for your product, because if you're an attractive young woman, you are probably inherently aspirational to a certain amount of consumers. And as you said, there's this entire kind of industry built to target these women. And AI companies, I think, recognize this pretty recently where they have sort of decided to go after these, like, hot girls in an effort to kind of like trojan horse a lot of AI technology into consumers' minds.

Speaker 3:
[11:26] Totally. I feel like Paris Hilton is one of the best examples. And Paris Hilton is one of the OG it girls. We don't even have as much of an it boy concept as we have the it girl. And Paris Hilton, when I think back to her early 2000s tabloid photos, she was accessorizing with mobile technology and carrying a phone in a bag that was pink and glittery. That is what I associate her with. And that carries up until today because she is also the face of... Remember, she did the NFTs?

Speaker 2:
[11:56] Oh my gosh. And then crypto. I mean, but you see this effort from tech companies to leverage people like her. Now, what I think is interesting about her is that she's just so clearly willing to be a billboard for any evil technology. She's married to a venture capitalist as well. Like, she's gone to the dark side. But I think of more of kind of like the West Village girls, these girls that are like maybe 150K on Instagram, but they have a dedicated following, they have perfect skin, they seem to have these perfect lives, and they're usually white, thin, blonde, or like very well capped women that really exemplify kind of our cultural standards of beauty, that sort of traditional standards of beauty. And one of the earliest massive evil tech companies to start targeting these women and really working with these women, and has for a long time, is Facebook Meta. You mentioned earlier Meta only exists, I think, because women adopted it, despite its sort of bad origins. But Meta really started to try to get women to use AI back in 2023. They were one of the first companies that really started targeting women. And they positioned their AI tools as these creative tools. Do you remember their AI stickers that they launched?

Speaker 3:
[13:10] I remember that. I remember AI Charlie D'Amelio, because they did those AI chatbots that were like influencers, and like very female coded, I felt like.

Speaker 2:
[13:21] Yeah, they really wanted to like basically say, hey, this is this tool for expression, make your content cuter and funnier. And I think this plays into these like high frequency social behaviors that like women generally have with each other. Also they have Eva Chen, right? Like Instagram has all of this, like they're sort of kind of like Apple, like have already spent like a decade positioning themselves as like, you know, in touch with like culture.

Speaker 3:
[13:47] Totally, totally. And this just feels like the evolution of like the VSCO girl who used these filters for her Instagram posts into like, okay, now she uses Facetune to like make sure her photos are perfect. So now she'll use AI as another level of optimization. And you see that playing out with a lot of influencers.

Speaker 2:
[14:07] Yeah. So they kind of kicked it off. And I was watching this, like, I mean, I report on these companies a lot and Chat GPT released in 2022. And I think that was really the beginning of the modern AI boom. Meta started targeting women as early as 2023 and throughout 2024. I would argue that it really, like, wasn't until the past year-ish, like end of 2024 into 2025, where we started to see companies like OpenAI and later Anthropic that are, like, AI-first native companies really start to target women. And the way that Chat GPT went about it was kind of like you mentioned, it's like the photo filtering stuff. It was very much like around aesthetic. Do you remember the Studio Ghibli kind of style filters that went viral last March?

Speaker 3:
[14:51] Oh, yes, 100%.

Speaker 2:
[14:53] The response to those filters was actually primarily women. And it's funny because I spend so much time on Twitter, I think of it as like the worst AI-pilled men that use that, like Sam Altman himself. But actually women loved this trend and leaned into it.

Speaker 3:
[15:06] Oh, yeah, it was all over Instagram. It was like every woman's Instagram story was her making a Studio Ghibli filtered version of something she had already posted.

Speaker 2:
[15:16] It's interesting that women liked it so much. I think it was maybe just like the aesthetic of it, whereas men had been using AI to optimize their LinkedIn photos and stuff. There is something about the Studio Ghibli aesthetic and color scheme. Also, it's just like sort of has this warmth and nostalgia and kind of like emotional resonance that kind of made it this natural entry point for people, especially women that had never used AI before.

Speaker 3:
[15:41] Totally. I mean, I think that a lot of women have so much affinity for Studio Ghibli movies and characters, and a lot of those movies do feature young girls and young female characters. So it makes a lot of sense to me that that was a real breakthrough moment versus how you saw so many guys creating imagery of women with AI and still do, which is oftentimes very sexualized, but still Japanese or anime-inspired. But you went from seeing a lot of men doing it and just creating a real Elon Musk style into women being like, oh, I can actually do this in a way that I'm choosing to do it. I'm taking control of how I'm going to shape my likeness. And it's actually very innocent and sweet.

Speaker 2:
[16:22] The Studio Ghibli trend with OpenAI's ChatGPT tool, the image generation tool that OpenAI integrated into ChatGPT that went viral with the Studio Ghibli trend became one of the fastest spreading AI features in ChatGPT history. And it set off a wave of other kind of aesthetic trends. So right after the Studio Ghibli thing went viral, the next OpenAI trend that went viral was the create an action figure of me trend, where you would upload a photo of yourself and you would have ChatGPT render you as like a collectible toy figure that was like packaged in a box with all your accessories. Did you do this trend?

Speaker 3:
[17:02] These are like some of the few times that I have used ChatGPT because in reporting on these trends, it was like having to see how it worked. So yes, I did do this.

Speaker 2:
[17:11] Yeah, I did mine too and I was deranged. I can't remember. Maybe my internet footprint is just so bad. I can't remember what it had, but I hated it. I didn't even share it. But this was really, really popular actually with teen girls. Like I think they liked the kind of interesting, like nature of the output. Like it's kind of like, to me, it combines two things. Like one, it's like a starter pack meme effectively, but it also like you're asking the AI to tell you about yourself. And so you're sort of, it's also like this sort of fun thing where it's like, almost like astrology, right? Where it's like, hey, you read me and tell me what my interests are, and I will then judge and laugh if, you know, it's accurate or not.

Speaker 3:
[17:47] For sure. It's also really reminiscent to me of those like mid-2010s websites where you could design outfits and you could design like, this shirt goes with this accessory, goes with this thing, this thing. And with those websites, there were sort of like, I feel like, autofill possibilities or like randomize or just like give me a format. And so this to me is very reminiscent of that style of creativity.

Speaker 2:
[18:11] I think it's also just like the way that girls are socialized, like you are socialized to see yourself as a doll. Like obviously like Barbie is the iconic kind of version of this and like you want to be Barbie. But also I think of like American Girl dolls and how like American Girl went from these like seven or eight like standardized dolls to then making dolls that look like you and you could get the doll version that looked like you and you could have a mini me and you could match outfits and you could match whatever. I think that trend was so breakthrough with teen girls and young girls because it was sort of just like the virtual version of that.

Speaker 3:
[18:46] And so many of these trends like the VSCO girls and face tuning and things like that, like it is all extremely appearance focused and like how are you projecting your image online is at the root I feel like of so many like majority women uses of this technology.

Speaker 2:
[19:04] Yeah, and OpenAI took notice of this. Like they recognize that, oh, hey, if we can get women participating in these kind of like viral aesthetic trends, we can start to get them to adopt our products. They explicitly found that women or at least users with more feminine names who they guessed were women, were started to be more likely to use Chachi PT for these creative tasks after these trends started. And the company starts to build features that target women throughout 2024 and 2025, where they're trying to essentially tweak Chachi PT's tone to try to be more friendly, less analytical, more emotional, and encourage women as well to use it for emotional tasks. I think of the woman that fell in love with her therapist, but this is when you start to see it, like them sort of position it as this emotional, like this tool that can listen to your emotions, like your husband won't listen to you, like chat with Chachi PT, get dating advice on Chachi PT. There was this effort to encourage women to upload your text messages with the guy that you like to Chachi PT and have it analyze, and it will tell you, and all of that to this day remains popular use cases among young women. But OpenAI is not alone. You see other big tech companies, especially Google last year, start to go very hard towards women, especially after they launched NanoBanana, their image generation tool. This is when they were encouraging women to use it. It could make alterations with your face. They were encouraging women to use it to try on makeup, try on hairstyles, and within weeks of it launching, over 200 million images had been generated, fueled primarily by young women creating editorial style quality, portraits of themselves, or positioning themselves in fashion and travel themed photos.

Speaker 3:
[20:49] I feel like this was around the time when it occurred to me, and I started seeing people talk about how more and more Instagram photos were being almost entirely generated with AI, including travel and lifestyle photos. So influencers could basically stage vacations or stage exotic backgrounds for their photos, and it was so realistic. I think that the idea that the idea of a banana was so good that you couldn't even necessarily tell.

Speaker 2:
[21:15] I didn't see at least anyone that I saw making fake photos because I still don't think that the tech is that. It's still somewhat detectable. But I think that there was a lot of effort too. I mean, you saw this with Apple, right? Rolling out AI features in iPhoto, where they're like, hey, now you can remove that. Is that annoying guy standing in your photo on the beach? Don't you want to remove that? Wouldn't that be so much better? Optimize your photos. Make your aesthetics better. And I mean, NanoBanana, Apple, in the past year, they really leaned into that. I think it's interesting that instead of marketing Gemini, which is their LLM competitor to OpenAI, towards women, they were like, OK, we'll wait for NanoBanana, and then we're going to go really hard with NanoBanana at women, because we know that women will have these visual use cases. But that's not to say that they didn't try to then get women to adopt Gemini. And I don't know if you remember seeing a lot of these on TikTok, but last year there were all these trends of like AI prompts for the girlies. Like there was literally one article entitled Gemini AI prompts for girlies. And it would just be all about like prompts for the girlies for this, like prompts for the girlie. And it was like, I don't know, I noticed a lot of like TikTok kind of lifestyle influencers pushing this stuff.

Speaker 3:
[22:30] Yes, I feel like when I would see this stuff aimed at women in particular, it was a lot of like, use it to help build your grocery list, use it to help figure out a workout routine, like things that fit into these lifestyle categories that predominantly have been marketed toward women in the past.

Speaker 2:
[22:47] Yeah, it goes back to like the hot girl economy of like, you know, how like, what do hot women do? You know, what do hot women use? You know, will using this help you optimize yourself in this way? And I think it's also just like encouraging you to imagine yourself with a better life. Like, I think it's revealing that sometimes the LLM, I've had this myself, it'll be like, do you want an image of this? Or do you want to see this visualized? Like when you are talking about like workout trends or whatever, it'll often ask if you want image generation. And you can kind of like picture yourself doing these things. You can picture yourself following this, you know, list of things that this AI has prompted you.

Speaker 3:
[23:24] Seeing how AI has changed Pinterest content has been really interesting because Pinterest content has always been aspirational, but not necessarily like realistic or something you will actually do. The majority of like pinning stuff for most people is like, oh my gosh, if I, you know, dressed like this, if I followed these cleaning routines, if I, if my wedding looked like this, that would be perfect. But it's so built on like aspirational culture. And I will now get pins recommended to me on Pinterest where it's like how to optimize your life in like eight different categories. And one of those categories will be like, here's how you can now use ChatGBT in addition to all of these like very aspirational self-optimization cultural norms that Pinterest has already built up over previous decades.

Speaker 2:
[24:11] Well, speaking of just like the types of photos that you might find on Pinterest that are, you know, Pinterest is so AI generated, is these photos that started to crop up last fall of women that looked perfect with perfect skin, very well dressed, that were surrounded by adorable animals. This was known as like the snow white trend or the AI puppy trend. And it was everywhere. It went viral initially based off this lifestyle influencer who had posted photos of herself to Instagram, surrounded by puppies. And very quickly, everybody kind of wanted to make their own. And this is right when Nano Banana was becoming more mainstream. You started to see women's magazines like even Cosmopolitan was publishing articles on how to make your own AI puppy photo for simple steps to jump in on the adorable trend for free. And I just think it's so wild that this was just like how hard it hit in women's media. And there are all these like viral tweets about it to the point that now you have like major women's magazines being like, get on board with the AI trend, like use these products now, like you want this. This is going to be adorable and fun in your feed.

Speaker 3:
[25:17] And it's no surprise knowing that like OpenAI and Conde Nast have worked together behind the scenes. Some of this stems from, I feel like, that partnership, but also this has been such a facet of media for so long. I remember when I worked at Business Insider, every year we would write a piece that was like how to make your top eight on Instagram, how to like make a collage with your most liked posts. And every year, like those like very utility articles would do so well. They would get so many clicks. So it's also to me like a very natural step to be like, okay, now let's get traffic by writing how to guides about AI trends.

Speaker 2:
[25:54] Yeah. I think it also just like feeds into the pet internet world where I mean, another thing that you started to see as image generation tools became more popular was people making these like hyper stylized portraits of their pets. I went to somebody's house that was a friend of a friend recently, Kat, and they had this little area for their dog. And it was like the little doggy bed. And then around it was like, maybe 12 framed images, like some of them looked like painting, some of them looked like drawings, all of the pet. And I was like, oh my god, this is so cool. Like, is this something that you do where you like, you know, every time you find a new artist or you do go to like street people to draw this or whatever, they were all AI.

Speaker 3:
[26:34] Oh my gosh, that is so wild.

Speaker 2:
[26:37] And she was like, yeah, I saw it in someone else like do this online. And I thought that was so cute. I could make this little gallery wall for my above my doggy bed. And I was like, oh, that is cute. I hate it actually. I hate it.

Speaker 3:
[26:51] I'm like planning a wedding this year. So I've been knee deep in online wedding content. And you know how it's been a trend for a few years to have like the bride and groom's specialty drink and have like a little sign. And a lot of times it's like named after your pet and there'll be like a little drawn photo of them. Tons of people are making signage like this with AI now. And having AI like make like watercolor versions of their pet instead of traditionally you'd like paint someone on Etsy or something like that.

Speaker 2:
[27:17] Yeah, I don't know. It just like there it takes away something not, you know, knowing that it's done by AI. But I think that it's interesting sort of like how the the pet's trend intersect with women. Obviously women are not solely the only dog owners, but the way, you know, the puppies and cute bunnies surrounding women on doorsteps, you know, definitely were. The AI company that has done the most aggressive and targeted outreach towards women especially fashion influencers is Higgsfield. Higgsfield is actually an enormously popular AI company that I think a lot of people don't hear about as much because it's not like the main AI company, you know what I mean? It's not like Chat GPT or Google or whatever, but it's pretty massive. It's a generative video editing startup that has raised over $138 million. It's huge. It's got huge VCs. It was founded by a former Snapchat executive and it's very well known, I would say, in the hardcore tech, AI industry. I heard of it initially because almost every single fashion girly was using it. If you've seen those videos where the outfit flies onto the girl or they do these weird transitions where the clothes fly off somewhat, they're using Higgsfield to do that.

Speaker 3:
[28:32] Is that the one where it'll be like Taylor Swift if she was born in every country and it's following her around the room?

Speaker 2:
[28:38] No, that I think is done with other tools like Leonardo AI. I only say that because my friend and I started an AI Slop account at one point and we were using all these tools. We joined this Discord for Slop makers. I was reporting on it at the time and I was like, again, if I'm going to report on it, I'm going to do it. Those are more the low-level tools. No, these are ones that real human creators are using. You'll see the comments of them. They don't even realize that AI is being used. They're just like, this is insane editing. How did you do this? And it's like, they're using AI for the transitions because it's not AI-generated content, it's AI video editing tools. It's interesting that Higgsfield's primary sort of proprietary image generation model, which is called Soul, was explicitly trained on women's content, specifically fashion content, and a lot of content that was used by fashion bloggers that was like very urban and visual and kind of like the, it's very like TikTok fashion aesthetics. And it features a lot of really easy one-click of skin editing tools, photo editing tools. Like it's just, it's very much built for women who want to make short form fashion creators. And they reached out and started partnering very early with short form creators on TikTok and Instagram that are women doing fashion content. And maybe some of this is just because the executive came from Snapchat where like, I think he just recognized very early that this is a really valuable user group and one that would be likely to adopt these tools early.

Speaker 3:
[30:04] That makes so much sense. It's like Snapchat and women who used Snapchat filters, I feel like really normalized the wave of like AI or like, what was it called on Snapchat before it was called AI? Like augmented reality. I feel like that was like such a huge wave of normalizing like content that used these types of filters and tools. And even now with like the short form video field being so crowded, it's like seamless editing helps you stand out and the visuals of women that are like very highly produced and highly edited traffics so well on these platforms.

Speaker 2:
[30:39] It's interesting you mentioned Snapchat's AR era because actually the executive who started Higgsfield worked on Snapchat's AR lenses. But they have all of these features like styles, you know, snap type things where you can instantly swap your outfit. Back in January, Higgsfield posted a photo gallery on their Instagram titled Cool Girl Guide and they had all of this cool like fashion, like laptops worn as glasses, lash accessories, chic makeup kit and it's just like these crazy looking like teeth. I don't know, it's just it's kind of creative and funny. And I think for women that are like the more like alt like downtown, cool girl, like super in touch with like edgy fashion aesthetics, like Higgsfield just got in on that demographic very early. And now it's seen as very like cool and cutting edge. Whereas I think Claude, OpenAI, et cetera, those are at Gemini. It's like that's all seen as like mainstream and boring. And like Higgsfield is seen as like so forward thinking and cool.

Speaker 3:
[31:36] This aesthetic is also so reminiscent to me of like Tumblr and also Lady Gaga, like the early Lady Gaga, because literally in this slideshow, there's a woman with a lobster, like a silver lobster head accessory that is just I think Lady Gaga literally wore this. So that is super interesting to me because it's like it calls back to sort of the almost like MySpace early Tumblr era of the Internet.

Speaker 2:
[32:05] Yeah, I think like it's so funny in addition to publishing cool girl guides. They literally published this gallery of these two girls that are like young, you know, I guess teen, maybe college age girls wearing like pajama kind of crop tops. They look cool. They're in bed. They're on their phones and it says AI can be cool. And it says like fashion and taste. And like when you scroll through, it just shows all of these like cool, funky ways to use AI and specifically their products, of course. But when you scroll through, you're like, wait, that does look cool. It does make you want to be creative. And you do kind of want to like mimic the aesthetics of the Higgsfield world.

Speaker 3:
[32:45] Yes. One of these slides says image to image is a generation mode where a reference image guides the creation of a new visual, preserving the original mood of the reference, which is a really interesting way to market this to me because it's very different from what I think people think of when they think of AI Slop, like the Facebook Slop and even like the YouTube Slop, where it's like short form videos that don't really like appeal to people who are super cool. But this is like, oh, we're just improving on what you've already created. We're just making it more like visually appealing, which they're doing it, but it's not even visually appealing.

Speaker 2:
[33:24] Some of the stuff that people make with Higgsfield is like surreal and weird and iccy. And they have like, I don't know, a water fountain made of teeth. It's not pretty. You can use Nano Banana to make your skin look perfect, but Higgsfield makes you look like cool. It's like Julia Fox aesthetic as well. I think that that's why it has so much traction in these worlds and it's gotten a lot of, I would say very cool women that would be anti-AI, like if you were to look at them, you would not think that these women were super pro AI, but they've adopted Higgsfield because it is so women cool coded, and it's not just like improve your skin, look perfect. It's like, do you want to make yourself look weird and cool and do something with your videos that no one else has, that's going to make you look really stand out in the feed? Use these tools and before you know it, you're completely addicted to AI and you love these tools because it's letting you like be this like weird, cool girl that like does stand out in the feed and that does get attention and does get followers.

Speaker 3:
[34:26] Literally like what Grimes was doing, like when Grimes started her music career, like that's like such the vibe to me.

Speaker 2:
[34:33] Oh my God, she's probably like, yeah, she's probably Higgsfield Pills. You mentioned Snapchat before and I do want to get back to that because Snapchat also is doing a bunch of AI stuff and they're still very much like a consumer social app. But I think you're totally right that the AR features on Snapchat sort of paved the way for AI. Even back as far as 2023, Snapchat launched Dreams, which was their AI generated selfies that would put you in these really cool scenarios. And they were really encouraging people within the app to use more generative AI filters. Because I think all of these social companies recognize that generative AI can be used as a creative tool that will make consumers more comfortable sharing content, which is ultimately what they can profit off of.

Speaker 3:
[35:17] And I feel like watching how Snapchat has introduced AI features has been really interesting. Because the first thing I remember about Snapchat AI, and I still use Snapchat every single day, very much of that generation. But I remember at the beginning, it was like, you could turn on a feature and Snapchat would send you entirely AI generated images of you and a friend. And I remember my friends and I were sending each other back and forth to these, making fun of them because they were so ridiculous. But what I've noticed is that now, to me, the predominant way that Snapchat uses or has AI tools is through editing. Because when you take a photo on Snapchat and you have your drop down toolbar with all the different ways you can edit your photo, now half of those tools are AI. And I think that's really interesting how they clearly have figured out or at least testing out the idea that it's more so about people wanting to improve upon real photos they've already taken using AI versus like, we're just going to send you a completely AI generated image of yourself.

Speaker 2:
[36:20] Yeah, I think of this with Canva because I use Canva every day and half of Canva is just like AI tools that are honestly very useful, like things that would have previously taken me four hours in Photoshop, I can do with Adobe itself as well has incorporated all of this stuff. So I think that gets people on board with using AI tools more frequently. Nothing has funneled women more into using these mainstream massive tech platforms, I would say, the OpenAI, the Anthropics, the Geminis, etc. Then some of the partnerships that they've done. I mean, you mentioned Conde Nast earlier, they've done tons of partnerships with women's media brands, but also with major fashion brands. I mean, you have Gucci running AI generated ads, Louis Vuitton pivoting towards AI personal shopping advisors, Prada exploring AI-powered smart glasses, and other brands like Burberry, Versace, Chanel, Dior. They're all leveraging AI, using AI in marketing or in personal shopping tools, and that seems to be a really big shift as well.

Speaker 3:
[37:24] Yeah, it reminds me of reading reports about how women in China were using AI a couple of years ago, and how it was really popular to basically try on outfits using AI tools. And I feel like that really is a strong segue for these luxury fashion brands, because it's also very aspirational, as is owning a Louis Vuitton bag.

Speaker 2:
[37:47] Yeah, in addition to just the aspirational aspect, you even have companies like Sephora, which Sephora launched its AI beauty advisor back in 2024. And L'Oreal, of course, has also gotten in, you know, doing AI skin analysis tools. And basically all of this sort of stuff that I think soft integrates AI into women's lives. And in addition to targeting like young girls, teenage girls, the hot girls, the West Village girls, et cetera, AI companies have also really targeted moms. And it's interesting you mentioned that Amazon AI commercial earlier in the episode, but Amazon, Microsoft, like especially as they've increasingly partnered with the government on weapons and things, they're targeting moms so aggressively. I think it's not as much of the like pink beauty fashion branding, but it's more for like daily life. Like you have Microsoft Copilot, which is publishing these consumer facing guides like AI for your life. It's meal planning, grocery lists, kid-friendly routines. Or even I think of like the parents that now use AI to generate coloring books for their children.

Speaker 3:
[38:54] Yes, I've seen people talk about doing this or like I had my like, I created a sequel to my kid's favorite book using AI, so that I had a new story to read them that they would love, like stuff like that. I've increasingly seen new moms, like super young moms talk about using ChatGPT as like an advice bot or like a co-parenting tool almost, like asking questions like how, what should I do with my newborn baby, things like that. And this also reminds me like mid 2025, I went to an OpenAI, like press briefing for journalists that was co-sponsored by Conde Nast, which obviously like tons of different magazines, but primarily thought of as like a women's fashion brand. And they brought up like they were doing these interviews with like people who worked at OpenAI and editors at like, I believe like Vanity Fair might have been one of them. And it was really interesting because they talked about women using ChatGBT as a shopping tool, being one of like their big pathways forward.

Speaker 2:
[39:56] Yeah. And I know so many young moms that love AI tools. Like, I mean, you know, it's really scary. One of my friends had a baby recently and you're so lonely when you have a baby, you know, like you're just home all the time. And she was increasingly using AI just to like interact with and chat with. And, you know, it would just give her ideas and suggestions. And I think it's also so scary when you're a mom. You don't always have someone to call, especially as we increasingly isolate mothers. So if you can Google something on AI in the middle of the night, you wake up and you're like, wait a minute, is it normal that my baby's, you know, just burped out like brown liquid or something? Like, you know, like is the baby dying? Which is kind of terrifying because we've seen that AI is not great for always providing this sort of accurate advice, but it's just become this like inescapable tool for so many young moms.

Speaker 3:
[40:46] Yes, I feel like that is the sentiment I see most clearly expressed with young moms in particular using AI is like, when I'm up alone with the baby at 3 a.m., I'm asking ChatGPT questions, like I'm turning to ChatGPT as a tool for advice when I have no one to call, when it's like too late to like call somebody, and also just like a companion. And that makes so much sense because talking to ChatGPT is so different from just like Googling and reading a blog. It's so much more personable in those interactions. So it's like doling out motherly wisdom in a very comforting and soothing way, and also giving you a sense of companionship at a time when you might not really feel like you have any.

Speaker 2:
[41:29] Yeah, I think women generally use ChatGPT for emotional tasks. This is backed up with research from OpenAI. OpenAI's own research also found that women use ChatGPT most heavily for creative writing, which is the single most common task for white collar workers, especially so for marketing and communication and HR roles, which are actually dominated by women. And it's also so interesting to see what tools women use, because I think that Claude specifically, I mean, they position themselves as the writing tool, the thinking tool, but they've been able to get a lot of adoption with young white collar women.

Speaker 3:
[42:08] I mean, I feel like their advertising as of late has been very adversarial with Chat GPT, specifically, again, going back to the Super Bowl ads, their Super Bowl ads featured women, like a young woman wanting to start her own business. And it positioned Chat GPT as a very predatory tool for a young entrepreneurial woman as compared to using Claude. So I thought that was really, really interesting as well, positioning it as a tool for a very resourceful young woman who needs a mentor, which is something a lot of women lack.

Speaker 2:
[42:42] Yeah, 100%. And we also know from Anthropic that Claude is increasingly being used for journaling, emotional processing, relationship advice, parenting support, creative writing, et cetera. Basically all use cases that women adopt at higher rates. And I don't want to be like the women's loneliness epidemic, but like it is so true. Like women are so lonely. There is no moral panic about it like there is for men. And you know this even from products like Replica, which is this AI companion tool. They have a majority female user base. And it's a lot of women using it for emotional support or kind of like engaging in fantasy, role play. I mean, this is the same reason a lot of women, I don't know if you read that story in the Times, are reading like AI generated fantasy and romance novels.

Speaker 3:
[43:26] Yes. And I've seen more people in fandom talk about how AI has increasingly been used to like write fan fiction and make fan art and make like these types of edits, which I just find so fascinating because it's like, it takes away some of what the process of writing fan fiction, I feel like, did for women.

Speaker 2:
[43:45] Well, I think like overall these AI companies are making this bet that like women will adopt their AI tools for these like social and emotional use cases more rather than using them for technical productivity. And I just, I wonder that as well, because like as somebody that's a very failed web developer, I went back and got this like certificate in Web Development from NYU. In the early 2010s, I was like, this is before I knew I was going to be a journalist. I was obsessed with editing my Tumblr themes. And I was like, I'm going to be a front-end web developer because I'm working retail, this sucks. There's like apps are taking off. I'm going to learn how to code. And I could make, you know, maybe basically like the shittiest Ruby on Rails app ever, you know, but I would like participate in these hackathons. But it would take me a long time because I'm not a detail oriented person. Ultimately, this is why my web development career went nowhere. And I got into like writing, but I have been playing around with Claude code and I used it to make website recently and I've been using it to make just like pretty basic tools. It's fucking incredible. I hate to say that like I am such a critic of these AI companies and also like of Claude, like Claude was just used to like bomb, you know, like a children's school in Iran. Like I hate that, you know, but it is increasing like you see why, especially if you are a developer, you know, at one of these companies or a product manager, why this would be adopted. And I think at the same time that, you know, women only represent, I think it's something like less than a third of STEM roles overall. The men that are in these roles are leveraging AI to insane degrees. I think that's going to make like, you know, so many different shifts because I think a lot of those men are also going to lose their jobs and we're all going to lose our jobs. But men are adopting AI for these like automated tools. And I would say things like, yeah, automating web development, right, which isn't necessarily a creative process. Maybe if you're automating some of the like CSS, like front-end design stuff. But like at the same time, women are almost 70% of marketing roles. And the way that they're using AI is often for very like creative and not technical solutions. So they're using AI to do creative writing, to develop visual assets, etc. And I just think that that's an interesting split. It's like women are being trained to use AI to like replace their creativity and like emotional output. And like men are being trained to use AI to replace like wrote tasks.

Speaker 3:
[45:57] Totally, and it's like I can see why having these utilities for women would be attractive to AI companies as well. Because these are so much more all encompassing parts of your life versus like using AI at your job. And then you go home and like you aren't presumably like using AI anymore. But if you're using AI as a function of creativity and lifestyle and daily tasks, both like in work and in the home, then you're a better customer because you're spending more time engaging with the product and because the product is more meaningful to you, and you're not going to stop using the product just because your life has changed or you don't have the same job anymore.

Speaker 2:
[46:35] Yeah, that's such a good point. But it makes me like concerned. And I feel like there's people that probably turned this episode off when they heard that I use cloud code or something like there's this aspect of people. And I've encountered it a lot like in my comment section, I think where it's like people, did you see that viral tweet a little while ago that was like, if you use ChatGPT, like you are evil. It had like thousands of likes. It was something like that. And I was just looking at it and I was just like, ChatGPT is the fastest growing consumer product of all time. No other consumer tech product has ever experienced the rapid adoption that ChatGPT has. So clearly, AI is useful for something, for some people. And I think it's like, it's hard because I think we're entering into this phase where it's like we're increasingly forced to use it or even finding uses in ourself. But these companies are evil. And it feels like to the people that are the most dedicated haters of AI, and sometimes I include myself in that, like any sort of use of these products is like evil in itself and you're complicit in the bad stuff these companies do. And I think it's a really reductive way to view this technology that's ultimately kind of unproductive. Because if you just say everyone that uses AI is evil, like I don't think that's true. Like I think actually it can be valuable. And I think increasingly as we're seeing these categories of women find real use in it, like new moms or whatever, I think we should like keep our criticism. I mean, I've said this with social media as well, but like I think it's so important to keep your criticism focused on the companies rather than the users.

Speaker 3:
[48:08] Oh, a million percent. It is essentially like thought terminating to just say that all everyone who uses AI is evil because then you completely like negate any accountability for the company itself. When the reality is like, I have so much empathy, like I agree with you that I don't think every usage of the technology is bad. And even for the people who are being like manipulated or being fed like misinformation or maybe like using it in a way that I think ethically is fraught, I'm still empathetic toward them, especially when you look at women who are like in this vulnerable position as a new mom, I completely understand why they would turn to a chatbot. Like if we had a system that treated people fairly and gave them the resources and support they need, they wouldn't be doing this, but we don't live in that perfect world. So I think it's wrong to demonize all chatbot users, and I also find that it's so performative, because I think even the most ardent AI haters, which I'm totally an AI hater. I don't use most of these things in my day-to-day life, but I also do because it's unavoidable. I also do read the AI search results at the top of Google results pages, and sometimes I just stop there because I've got so much information that I need. So it's like there are things like that where it's like, I almost feel like AI hate can absolutely be unproductive and can also be very performative because it's like people just want to have to say like, well, I'm not a part of that. So like, I don't have to deal with any of the problems because it doesn't even affect me. I'm not even a part of that. But it's so woven into everything now.

Speaker 2:
[49:46] And I think we also just, again, like the reason I want to do this episode is talk about like the strategic ways these tech companies are inserting themselves into all of our lives. And I think like maybe that hasn't hit you yet personally, but I promise it's coming for you because these tech companies have endless amounts of money and billions of dollars, and they will insert their products into your life somehow, which sucks. Like we don't deserve that. We want to curb that. We want to stop that. And it's not inevitable in the sense, but like it, as you mentioned with the Google AI stuff, I think a lot of us already use these consumer social or search products or tech products. And so, you know, it's easier to avoid Claude and Chad GPT than it is to avoid Google or to avoid Meta or, you know, these products or Apple, right, that we rely on. And, you know, and I think it's good to sort of like keep our criticism focused on the companies, encourage them to use ethical AI and also say, hey, when we see Anthropic or, you know, OpenAI or Google or any of these like major AI companies like running these campaigns, targeting teen girls, or you see them showing up at Fashion Week. Like we want people to know, like, don't forget that this is also being used to murder people in third world countries. You know, like this technology is also being used for like to commit some of the worst atrocities that we're seeing, you know, the genocide in Gaza, right? I just think it's interesting how at this same time, when people are just becoming aware of all the downsides and all the data center problems and all the environmental issues and all of these issues, they're like, wait a minute, we're girly pop, we're fun. Actually, just use us to make your shopping list. It's so fun and easy. Don't think about all that bad stuff because the more integrated these products are with women's lives, especially the less they're going to bear the brunt of their bad behavior.

Speaker 3:
[51:28] Oh, totally. I mean, looking at what's happening with OpenAI right now, as like Sam Altman is defending their decision to work with the Department of Defense and to potentially like power autonomous weapons and to conduct mass surveillance, like the fastest way to negate like negative PR is to feminize something because it makes it appear non-threatening. So in a way, it's like parallel to how like actors who have been accused of like abusing their wives will immediately start trying to appeal to women. And oftentimes that is a very successful PR strategy. Brad Pitt like puts on like a flowery outfit and lays in the meadow and takes a picture and like all of a sudden people forget allegations against him. So I feel like for these AI companies, it's beneficial to appeal to women for multiple reasons. It softens their image. It actually like leads to more consumer, more consumption of their products. And like if you are culturally resonant, that is so important. It's even more important than being technically proficient. It's like a lot of people are using something even if it's not as good as one of its competitors on the market. The reason why is probably because they see like their friends and family doing the same thing. It's because they see like the Instagram story trends. So I feel like appealing to women is one of the most important things a technology company can ultimately do.

Speaker 2:
[52:52] Yeah. And what really makes me angry is that these companies don't respect women at all. They fucking hate women. Like they treat women like women do not make up like the CEOs of these tech companies. You know, they're primarily not run by women. Like a lot of the men at the helm of these technologies, we didn't even get into GROK, by the way. Mostly because GROK is simply not targeting women. It's actually being used to target women aggressively with, you know, revenge corn and stuff. But women don't get a say in how a lot of the stuff is developed. And not to like girl boss, like call she has a female like co-founder and call she is evil. So, you know, I'm not to say like, oh, we just need a, we need a, OpenAI needs a Sheryl Sandberg, like, you know, to manufacture consent for genocide under girl boss feminism. But I do think that it's notable that like there is this sort of like hostility towards women from the tech industry generally. And it's interesting you bring up the OpenAI kind of drama with the Department of War and making the autonomous weapons and all this stuff. Because as we're seeing, everyone is standing Anthropic right now. I mean, people are like drawing things on the chalk, on the sidewalk outside and like drawing flowers and all. And I was just like, hello, guys, Anthropic still partners with Palantir. Listen to Dario, the CEO, he's not saying that his issue with autonomous weapons is simply that the AI is not ready yet. Not that it's some like, you know, huge bright line that they would never cross.

Speaker 3:
[54:18] Yes. And his issue with mass surveillance is that there's no legal framework to protect the company from liability and engaging in like mass surveillance.

Speaker 2:
[54:25] None of these companies are the good guys. And to see liberals turn around and like stan Anthropic has just been like, I think it was Timnit Gebru who, you know, is a former Google AI person, very like AI ethicist was just saying like, none of these companies are good. Like please wake up to the fact that like they're all exploitative and bad. And like we should criticize them as much as possible. Well, also, I think like recognizing that a certain amount of people are going to be forced to use them because again, these are technologies that are being like impressed upon us. And at the same time, these companies have undeniably created useful consumer technology products. And I think that that I know that AI haters don't want to acknowledge it, but I'm sorry, it's true. Like if you try to build a website with quad code, it is just going to take you so much less time than if you did not. And if you try to like feed all your ingredients into like chat, GPD, it is just simply going to be able to spit out a recipe in a cleaner and easier fashion than Google.

Speaker 3:
[55:19] No, that makes a lot of sense. And like the last thing I was thinking with the Anthropic versus OpenAI stuff that is happening right now is like Katy Perry, the portrait of neoliberal feminism literally posted like herself buying a yearly subscription to Claude after the whole Department of War thing went down. And I am like, that to me is such a perfect encapsulation of like the politics, like the female politics of this.

Speaker 2:
[55:46] I know. I feel like we're going to get like Chappell Rhone in an OpenAI ad or something soon, and it's going to break my heart.

Speaker 3:
[55:53] I mean, Chappell Rhone has, I remember she had a mini controversy because she did create like AI images of herself and people got mad at her. So it's almost already like happened in a small way.

Speaker 2:
[56:03] But that's what I mean. Like that kind of backlash is so unproductive because it's like it is like, I think we have to have space to acknowledge that it is fun to generate silly photos of yourself. These platforms do provide creative tools that can be genuinely useful. Guys, it would not be, ChatGPD would not be the fastest growing consumer product of all time if it did not have some use case to consumers. And you can argue that that use case is because Google is so broken by profit incentives that like that's why it's so useful. And you're right. But like, I don't know. I wish that there were more ethical uses of AI. Like I am not against the concept of AI. Like theoretically, like machine learning can be used for good. But I think we just need to like focus on criticizing these companies and recognizing like what they're doing. You know, when we see a ChatGPT or Gemini or, you know, Google, whatever, saying, hey, everybody put puppies in your photos, whatever, like be able to call out what's happening and keep that criticism really directed on the companies. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[57:00] And I suspect, I mean, we're already seeing this play out, but it's like, as usual, women will be held to a different standard for using AI than their male counterparts, and women will face more backlash and more gendered criticism for even one-time uses of AI versus men who use AI for truly malicious purposes. I'm sure more people have gotten mad at Katy Perry and Chapel Road than the guys who were using AI to put themselves on Epstein's jet, which was more so like a toxic masculinity trend where other men were praising them. So you're going to see this play out along gendered demarcations of what behavior is deemed acceptable, and also like who's considered evil for using AI. It's going to be women, not men.

Speaker 2:
[57:45] You're already seeing that. I mean, I just wrote a whole story on the Anthropic versus OpenAI stuff, and it's like I report on these companies, so do you. But I also love technology, and I became a tech reporter reporting on consumer technology specifically because I love to try new tech, and I beta test every single app out there, even like the crazy ones, and the standards that women tech reporters like me and Joanna Stern or something are held to compared to all of these men who effectively use AI to do half of their job, or like Casey Newton and Kevin Roos, right? I really like Casey and Kevin a lot personally, but they are the most AI-pilled podcasters out there, and no one is leaving Hague. It's just seen as like, oh, this smart, wow, they're really smart, they're ahead of the game. It's just infuriating because women tech reporters generally, there's hardly any of us, and then we're punished for using tech. It's like, guys, I'm a professional tech reporter, I'm going to use every single piece of technology out there. Consumer tech, again, to try it out, even with the Grok bikini trend or whatever, it's like when I was reporting on that, I made a bikini edit of myself just to see how does this work? What is the process?

Speaker 3:
[58:55] I did that on the back end, and when I have reported on deepfake apps in the past, I've tested them on myself. You do have to, I agree with you, it would be irresponsible to report on these technologies on a very basic level of like, it's your job to find the facts. You have to figure out, can the technology actually do what people are upset over? Sometimes it can't, and sometimes through reporting through using the technology, you can discover like, okay, Grok can make this type of image, but it can't make this type of image. And I think you're absolutely right. Like at the end of the day, this is such a constant with technology. These technological innovations are made by men for men to help men advance. And they have to market to women so that they can succeed, but they are benefited in a way by this social stigma against female users, because it's like that's their ultimate goal, is oftentimes for technology to do these horrible things, to advance in quotation marks warfare, to exacerbate and reinforce social stratification. So it's like they want to make money off of women, and they don't care what happens to those women after the fact. And I also think that's why so much of the marketing is around like, women obsess over your appearance. Like that is what so much of it boils down to as well.

Speaker 2:
[60:18] Yeah, 100%. Well, Kat, thank you so much for coming on and chatting about all this with me.

Speaker 3:
[60:23] Oh my gosh, of course. These are the best discussions about AI that I personally had.

Speaker 2:
[60:28] All right, that's it for this week's episode of Power User. If you like my work, please, please subscribe to my Patreon via the link below or buy a paid subscription to my Substack newsletter at usermag.co. That's usermag.co. I send a bi-weekly roundup of everything that I'm reading, seeing and following online. Buying a paid subscription really helps to support my work. You can also support me on Patreon, like I mentioned, where I do bonus episodes, monthly Q&A live streams and more. If you're listening to this on a podcast platform, by the way, please, please give a rating and review. It really makes such a difference to helping this show get discovered. I'll be back next week with a brand new episode of Power User. See you then.