In the era of filters, plastic surgery, Photoshop, and AI, it’s nearly impossible to avoid feeling burdened by beauty standards at every step. While we may admit that much of what we see online isn’t true, it’s still all too easy to compare ourselves to these false ideals, which wreak havoc on our confidence.
Dove, the legendary self-care company, launched an industry-changing Real Beauty campaign 20 years ago, featuring real women with real bodies in the hopes of motivating viewers to appreciate their actual, natural beauty. While the marketing is all positive, the movement’s spark is less optimistic: in 2004, a global Dove study showed that just two percent of women worldwide felt beautiful, and in 2010, when they conducted a follow-up survey, the figure had only climbed to four percent.
With less than 5% of women worldwide feeling beautiful, Dove recognized that they had a long way to go and much work to do. Today, as Dove celebrates 20 years of its Real Beauty campaign, the company has conducted additional studies to better understand the seriousness of the confidence crisis women face today. In response, Dove has reaffirmed its commitment to shattering this narrative with an unwavering dedication to honoring true beauty.
Dove Rejects AI in Beauty Standards
While the findings from Dove’s 2004 and 2010 research are startling, the lack of progress since then is perhaps even more troubling. In a recent study, the company observed that two in five women would give up a full year of their lives to achieve their beauty aspirations, and eight out of ten women feel more pressure to be attractive now than they did eight years ago. One of the most significant contributors to the rising demand for a specific look? You guessed it—AI.
Photoshop and airbrushing have been around for what feels like an eternity, but with AI’s seemingly limitless and hyper-realistic capabilities, the harm done to women’s self-image is now magnified more than ever before. Believe it or not, studies show that by 2025, AI will create 90% of all the content humans consume. While we may acknowledge that AI-generated media isn’t real, the effects on our sense of self are. Dove’s research revealed that one in every three women feels compelled to improve her appearance because of what she sees online—even when she knows it’s artificial.
AI may seem like an unstoppable force today, but after 20 years of serving hundreds of millions of young women and dedicating their work to building confidence, Dove has made yet another powerful commitment. To commemorate two decades of celebrating real beauty, Dove has pledged never to use AI to replace or alter genuine photographs of real people.
Real Beauty, Real Code: Dove’s Digital Promise
If we know anything about Dove, it’s that the company is willing to go above and beyond. In addition to its pledge to never use AI in advertisements, Dove took it one step further by developing an entirely new AI algorithm: the Real Beauty Playbook for Coding. This free, downloadable tool is accessible on multiple platforms and has been expertly trained to recognize and showcase the full spectrum of true beauty.
To demonstrate the power of this tool, Dove released a video in which they asked AI to generate “the most beautiful woman.” Nearly all the results featured variations of a thin, white woman with blonde hair. However, when the prompt was changed to “create the most beautiful woman according to Dove,” the images displayed a diverse range of women—of different backgrounds, ages, body types, and abilities. In short, the results revealed real beauty, proving that Dove is not only committed to featuring real, beautiful people in its advertising but also actively working to disrupt the very software that fuels some of the most damaging attacks on women’s self-confidence.
