As if beauty pageants weren’t controversial enough, Miss England is introducing a new “AI stage” where contestants compete by sending a digital clone of themselves. Basically, a lifelike AI avatar designed to book modeling gigs without the models actually being there.
It’s a bold experiment, Miss England says; and a pretty unconvincing one.
Jessica Pliskin, a 23-year-old physics graduate and working model, was one of only three contestants to sign up for the new “Business Avatar Round.” She spent hours filming with a tech company to create a hyperrealistic digital version of herself that will now be pitched to brands. If her AI twin lands the most contracts by October, she’ll advance to the pageant’s finals.
Pliskin sees this type of move as a necessary step in our changing world, she told the BBC. “I’d rather adapt than get lost.” Others see something darker on the horizon.
The Algorithm of Glamour
Miss England is no stranger to reinvention. It was one of the first pageant contests to axe the swimsuit round in 2009 and added categories to reward talent, activism, and personality. Organizers call the AI round a reflection of “the digital world our contestants are stepping into,” framing it as an entrepreneurial exercise as much as a beauty contest.
Pageantry, like fashion, has always mirrored cultural values. This new category suggests that success in the glamour world now requires more than charisma and looks: it requires being marketable in virtual space.
Most participants aren’t convinced.
“At the heart of pageantry is authenticity,” said semi-finalist Phoebe Michaelides, who opted out of the AI experiment. “I want people to connect with me as I am.” Michaelides also mentioned some of the more nefarious AI uses, like deep-fakes and misinformation.
Miss England director Angie Beasley defends the round as “progressive.” John Allard, CEO of MirrorMe, the company who is creating the digital transformation, insists this isn’t exploitation; it’s opportunity. “It’s part science and part art,” he tells BBC. Contestants spend two hours being filmed, every movement and facial expression captured. Those recordings fuel an AI model that can speak multiple languages, deliver presentations, and star in ad campaigns.
Harriet Webster, a model and press officer at a Sheffield talent agency, has a very different idea. “These clones take away a model’s personality,” she said. “It erases real people.”
A Mirror of Our World
This anxiety has been simmering for years. Fashion brands like Levi’s and H&M faced backlash in 2023 and 2024 for using AI-generated models in campaigns instead of hiring diverse human talent. In August 2025, Guess ran a glossy Vogue ad featuring an AI model. Critics accused the company of replacing real workers. But advertisers barely blinked. We already have AI bands, and attractive AI models and the odds are you’ve already seen quite a bit of AI-generated social media content (and not realized).
The modeling world is only one front in a larger cultural battle. In 2023, Hollywood actors went on strike over AI replicas of their likenesses. Musicians have sued AI startups for training voice models on copyrighted songs. Illustrators and photographers have seen their work scraped by image generators without consent. At the end of the day, the economics is irresistible for companies. You don’t need to pay your models or do make-up for them, they have no feelings and can work around the clock.
The AI stage in Miss England offers contestants a crash course in branding and tech. But it normalizes a world where your digital twin can out-earn you (and maybe even replace you in some ways).
What’s happening at Miss England is a preview of how AI technology is starting to enter into every corner of our lives, from entertainment to politics to the way we see ourselves in the mirror. It’s easy to dismiss a pageant as a sideshow, but history suggests that culture is often where technological revolutions start.
AI models will undoubtedly become more and more common, pageantry or not. They’ll smile at you just like the real thing, and you won’t always be able to tell if they’re real or not.
Welcome to the future.
