Chanel CEO Leena Nair criticises ChatGPT for generating all-male image of her leadership team

In response, an OpenAI spokesperson told Fortune that bias remains a major challenge in AI development and said the organisation is continuously updating its models to reduce bias and mitigate harmful outputs.

By  Storyboard18| Oct 31, 2025 9:42 AM
Chanel CEO Leena Nair

Chanel CEO Leena Nair has publicly challenged AI tool ChatGPT after it generated an image depicting her senior leadership team as entirely male, she explained during an interview with the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She revealed that during a visit to Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond she and her team prompted the AI with “Show us a picture of a senior leadership team from Chanel visiting Microsoft” — the output, she said, was “all men in suits.”

Nair pointed out that the result stood in stark contrast to the reality at Chanel, where 76% of employees are women and 96% of customers are female, explaining that the AI’s output was inaccurate and non-representative of the brand’s workforce and clientele.

She further revealed that despite the setback she believes AI integration at Chanel is non-negotiable and said the company must engage with the technology, emphasising that ethics and integrity must remain central. She added that she often speaks with tech CEOs urging them to integrate a human-centric approach into AI.

In response, an OpenAI spokesperson spoke to Fortune and acknowledged that bias remains a major challenge in AI development and said the organisation is continuously updating its models to reduce bias and mitigate harmful outputs.

First Published onOct 31, 2025 9:56 AM

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