In-Depth Review of 4 AI Headshot Generators for Websites

In this post, I’ll be reviewing several AI headshot generators I tested, and sharing my thoughts on which ones stood out.

A common question I get when working on website projects is, “How many professional photos do you need to design my website?”

My typical response for a five- or six-page website is that it’s ideal to have at least 5-8 professionally taken photos. It’s even better if they feature a few different settings or an outfit change.
However, some clients may only have 3-4 photos and really don’t want to deal with scheduling another shoot.

I also understand that some of you might be working on your first DIY website and don’t have the time or budget to hire a photographer. After all, it can be a lot of effort to find a good photographer, book a shoot location, and plan what to wear.
This is where AI-generated headshots can be incredibly helpful.

Recently, a client provided me with a set of AI-generated headshots to use for her site because she only had a few professional photos she liked. The final result still looked great and very relatable on her website.

What are AI headshots?

AI stands for Artificial Intelligence, and AI headshots are just computer-generated images of people’s faces. Basically, an AI headshot generator is a website where it’ll ask you to “pay” for a photoshoot, then you’ll upload a handful of selfies.

The website will then use those photos to generate more photos of you that (theoretically) look professionally taken, using machine learning to make them look good.

AI headshots aren’t expensive, usually somewhere between $10 and $30, and you’ll get anywhere from 50-120 photos out of the deal.

Now just to set expectations, in my experience, only about 10% of the photos look enough like you that you’ll want to use them.

But they’re not expensive to generate, so it’s still worthwhile, especially if you need more (or any!) nice-looking photos of yourself to market your coaching business.

How to generate great AI headshots

Before we dig into the best AI headshot generators, I wanted to give you some tips and tricks for getting the best results with these tools.

First, you’ll upload 10-20 different photos of yourself as “seed photos” to give the AI a good idea of what you look like. Exactly how many photos are required depends on the generator.

You want these photos to be ones of you where:

• You’re looking directly at the camera
• It’s you from the shoulders up with no hands near your face
• No one else is in the photo with you

The better the photos are you can submit to an AI headshot generator, the better results you’ll get.

When I polled my coaching network to see who had experimented with AI headshots, the people who had given the generator a couple of professional photos along with selfies as part of their seed photos got better results than those who did 100% casual selfies.

Not to say you can’t get great AI headshots with only casually taken photos, but having at least a few professional photos to in your seed photos, even if they’re family photos cropped in on only you, is helpful.

After you submit your photos to the generator, you’ll get your results from the platform anywhere from a few hours to a few days after submission, to give the AI time to work.

Best AI Headshot Generators

Without further ado, are 4 AI headshot generators I researched and experimented with, and a visual of what my results were.

Try It On AI

Try It On AI is the one I had heard the most about on social, and it’s also the one my client used who brought me those AI headshots to use on her website.

It’s $17 and you get 100 AI headshots, with no refunds. I uploaded 15 photos , and within 24 hours I had a link from Try It On AI to view photos.

Here were the top  photos

Overall, the AI headshots from Try It On AI were okay. I got a few decent photos, but not really any that I’d be willing to put on my website or use for my business social. The “best” photos from above are a bit too glam for my usual look.

Most of the photos either had me with long hair, no glasses, or with makeup that I wouldn’t normally wear. This is pretty key for me because being a pixie-wearer is a big part of my brand recognizability.

Also, one or two of them were just totally bad, like the one above where I have 15 fingers!

Not that Try It On AI can’t give great results. One of my friends and life coach, also used Try It On AI, and really loved some of her photos.

She noted that some of the generated photos looked nothing like her, making her look slimmer or more gray-haired than she preferred, but a few she does love and uses for her coaching practice.

All in all, my thoughts about Try It On AI are that it’s a fairly trendy platform, so the photos are meant to be more for the “fun of it” and aren’t as geared towards professional use.

Also, there was no “download all” button on the website, so you have to download each photo one at a time — not a great user experience!

Studioshot AI

 I tried Studioshot AI. This one is also marketed toward more teams.

I appreciate that you can choose a photography style for your shoot, customizing the lighting setup, background, and overall aesthetic.

Their pricing is on a sliding scale, starting at $30 per person for 80 photos, but getting less costly per person the more people you’re generating for.

Here were the photos I got from Studioshot AI after two days of processing:

These were by far my favorites out of all the AI headshot generators that I tried. They only gave me short hair, unlike some of the other options.

These results might have been the best because Studioshot AI actually has a team of photo editors who tweak the AI generated images after they’re created (hence the longer processing time).

And you get unlimited revisions if you don’t like the first edits!

So that’s a unique value proposition that sets Studioshot AI above the rest.

AI Suitup

AI Suitup is marketed towards individual professionals who want headshots to use on their resumes, LinkedIn, and team pages.

There’s no bulk purchase option for teams, though, like there is on HeadshotPro and another generator I’ll mention later. So you’ll have to pay for each individual team member’s generation individually.

It costs $20 and you get 100 AI-generated headshots just an hour or two after uploading your 15 seed photos. Here were my results:

The AI Suitup generated photos were okay. They felt more artificial than I prefer, probably because of the indoor studio-feel.

Also, many of them  look older than actual. They did do a pretty good job of using the right hair and glasses, though.

On the few “worst” photos, the shadow of glasses was present on the face, but the person wasn’t actually wearing glasses. So that was weird.

HeadshotPro