From Model to Photographer to AI Model Agency Founder: How SSIPPI.AI Started

How did I start in fashion?

I actually started in fashion on the other side of the camera.

Before becoming a photographer, I worked as a model. I did fashion and beauty shoots and appeared in music videos. I think this is partly why photography became so interesting to me. At some point, I became much more curious about what was happening behind the camera than being in front of it.

Photography eventually became my profession, and for almost 10 years I worked as a fashion photographer.

During those years, I worked with many real models and traditional model agencies. And my job was never only about taking pictures. I was involved in creative direction, concepts, casting, choosing faces for my own shoots and for productions, and putting teams together.

So I know this industry from both sides. I know what it feels like to be the person in front of the camera. And I also know what it feels like to spend days trying to find exactly the right person to put there.

Why can casting be so complicated?

And honestly, casting can be complicated.

You can find the perfect model for a project, but she is in another city. Or another country. Or she is traveling for shows. Or she is booked on the only day your studio and the rest of the team are available. Sometimes the model you really want simply isn’t there.

Of course, I’m happy when models are busy. That’s the job. But from the production side, coordinating all of this takes a lot of time.

And then there is the cost. If a model needs to fly in, there can be flights, accommodation and transportation on top of the model fee and agency fee. Then you have the studio, stylist, hair and makeup, assistants, equipment, retouching and the rest of the production.

Everyone deserves to be paid for their work. That’s not the problem. The reality is simply that a good fashion production can become very expensive very quickly.

What changed when Midjourney appeared?

I started experimenting with AI images quite early, when Midjourney first appeared. In the beginning, I was just curious. The images were nowhere near what we can create today, but the idea itself immediately caught my attention.

Photography always comes with some limitations. You depend on the location, the budget, the weather, the clothes you can actually get, the people who are available and the amount of time you have. Suddenly there was a tool where some of those limits didn’t exist in the same way. That fascinated me.

And I have always been this kind of person. I love new technology. I want to try the new thing, understand how it works and see how far I can push it. So I kept experimenting. And AI kept getting better. Then better again.

At some point, it stopped feeling like I was just playing with a strange new image generator. I started looking at some of the images and thinking: okay, this is becoming something completely different. Today, what surprises me most is how far the quality has come. There are AI images that are genuinely difficult to distinguish from photography.

But realism isn’t even the most interesting part for me. What I find more interesting is the freedom. Sometimes you can create an image exactly as you imagined it in your head. You don’t have to find a location that is close enough, a face that is close enough or a light that is close enough and then compromise around what is physically possible. You can start with the idea. As a creative person, that is very hard not to get excited about.

What do I think about AI models and real models?

I have mixed feelings about AI models. Because I was a model myself. And then I spent almost 10 years photographing real people.

Of course I understand why models can look at what is happening with AI and feel uncomfortable about it. There is a real possibility that some jobs that previously required a real model will be produced with a digital one instead. It would be dishonest to pretend otherwise. And in some ways, I feel sad about that too.

At the same time, I don’t think the conversation should always be “real models versus AI models” or “which one is better?” I think a client has the right to choose what makes sense for a particular project. Sometimes that decision will be creative. Sometimes it will be about time. Sometimes it will simply be about money. That doesn’t make the real model better or the digital model better. They are different ways of producing an image.

And I absolutely don’t want real photography to disappear. I love real shoots. There is something that happens when you put creative people together in one room that you cannot generate. There is energy. Someone changes something at the last minute and suddenly the image becomes better. You meet people. You become friends. One shoot leads to another shoot. A stylist introduces you to somebody. A model brings an idea you hadn’t thought about. That’s real life.

AI can’t replace that experience, and I don’t think it ever will. But it can create another kind of experience and another kind of production. And I think both can exist.

Is AI going away?

This is probably the simplest part of my opinion about all of this. We can like AI or dislike it, but I don’t believe we’re going backwards.

Technology has done this many times before. The internet changed how almost every industry works. Digital photography changed photography. Smartphones completely changed how we create and consume images. At the beginning, new technology often feels threatening, strange or unnecessary. Then gradually it becomes part of normal life. I think something similar is happening with AI now.

That doesn’t mean everything about AI is good. There are serious questions around consent, cloning real people, copyright, jobs and how this technology should be regulated. I actually think better rules are necessary, especially when a real person’s identity or appearance is involved.

But I can’t control how governments or technology companies will solve all of those questions. What I can control is how I choose to work with the technology myself. And personally, I would rather understand what is happening, learn it and participate in it than stand on the side saying that AI is bad and hoping it disappears.

How did SSIPPI.AI start?

At some point, creating individual AI images wasn’t enough for me anymore. I started thinking about all those years I had spent working with model agencies and casting models. And I had a very simple thought: what if this could work like a model agency? A brand or creative director could look through different faces, find the model who fits the idea and choose her for a campaign. Except the model would be digital.

That idea eventually became SSIPPI.AI, the AI model agency I founded. SSIPPI.AI creates and represents original digital models for fashion, beauty, advertising, e-commerce and creative production.

For me, an important part of the concept was that these shouldn’t be copies of existing people. I wasn’t interested in taking a real model or celebrity and making an AI version of her. I wanted to create original digital identities.

And strangely, creating them brought me back to exactly what I had been doing for years. I’m still looking at faces. I’m still thinking about what makes someone interesting to look at. Which face works for beauty. Which one feels more editorial. Which model could carry a luxury campaign. Whether she can look different from one shoot to another and still remain recognizable. The tools changed, but a lot of the creative decisions didn’t.

That’s also why I don’t see SSIPPI.AI simply as a gallery of beautiful AI-generated faces. I want it to work as an actual AI model agency. A brand can choose a digital model and use her for a fashion campaign, beauty imagery, e-commerce, social content or video production. And instead of organizing an entire physical shoot around that model, the production itself can also happen digitally.

For some brands and some projects, that can mean much more creative freedom, faster production and a very different budget. For other projects, a traditional shoot will still be the better choice. I’m completely fine with that. I’m not trying to prove that one should replace the other. I’m interested in the fact that now we have a choice that didn’t really exist before.

I started my career in front of a camera. Then I spent almost 10 years behind one. And now I run an agency representing models who don’t need a camera at all. I didn’t plan that progression. But somehow, looking back, it makes complete sense.

I still love photography. I still love photographing real people. I still love the unpredictability of a real shoot. At the same time, I can’t ignore how much AI has changed what is possible creatively in just a few years. And I don’t really want to ignore it. I want to see where it goes.

Frequently asked questions

Are SSIPPI.AI models copies of real people?

No. SSIPPI.AI was designed around original digital identities, not AI versions of real models or celebrities.

Will AI replace real photography?

Olga Kyro does not think so. She sees real shoots and digital production as two different ways of producing an image, and believes both can exist.

This story was first published on Medium.

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