AI-generated fashion models offer brands a tantalising opportunity: the ability to create lifelike images for retail websites while cutting production costs by 90% or more compared with photo shoots featuring human models.

For the modelling industry, however, the technology poses an existential threat, with limited regulation governing the ownership and use of digital replicas. Models risk having their images replicated without payment or being replaced entirely by synthetic models.

To understand how AI is reshaping the economics of fashion modelling, Reuters interviewed 15 modelling agency directors and reviewed more than a dozen confidential photo shoot contracts in which brands, including Diesel, Calvin Klein and L'Oreal, outlined proposed terms for AI-generated alterations and the future use of images.

The companies' contractual requests included the right to replace a model's face with another using AI, create a digital clone without additional compensation and use images of a model's body to train AI systems. The unsigned contracts also contained broad legal language that could give brands considerable leeway in how they use the technology.

While some companies are seeking to repurpose or modify images of existing models, others are turning to entirely AI-generated models that are not based on real people.

As AI adoption expands, modelling agencies are seeing bookings decline, photo studios are closing and models face the prospect of losing a significant portion of their livelihoods. Among the most vulnerable are photo shoots for fast-fashion retailers, which constantly add new collections to their websites.

"Within a year, even the next six months, there's going to be less jobs for models, especially our bread and butter, which is ecommerce," said Adot Gak, a London-based model who has appeared on the cover of Harper's Bazaar and in campaigns for brands including Balmain and H&M.

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