Who would you ask for advice on how to look your best? Your partner perhaps? Maybe a best friend? Or how about a faceless, feelingless bot?

For young women these days, it’s increasingly the latter, as a new trend on TikTok encourages users to hit up Chat GPT for tips on how to ‘glow up’.

For those unfamiliar with the term, a ‘glow up’ is a positive transformation – think of a main character from any late Nineties/early Noughties coming-of-age movie, such as Anne Hathaway’s Mia in The Princess Diaries, who takes off their glasses, gets a makeover and is suddenly very hot.

Now social media is awash with users, from teenagers to women in their 30s like me, sending the chatbot a picture of themselves and asking for detailed personalised instructions on ways to improve their appearance.

They then document their ‘Chat GPT Glow Up Journey’ as they religiously follow its recommendations, from Botox and fillersto drastic hair cuts and extreme diets and workouts.

One soon-to-be-bride in her late 30s sent the site a video of her face and is now sticking strictly to its suggestions for procedures to have in the run up to her wedding: microneedling (where fine needles are used to create tiny punctures in the skin to ‘stimulate collagen’), ultherapy (where ultrasound energy is used to ‘lift and tighten skin’) and Botox for a brow lift and to ‘reduce nasal labial folds’.

Just one session of each can add up to £5,000 – and they require regular top-up appointments.

Since having my baby, Jesse, eight months ago, I’ve definitely stopped paying as much attention to my appearance. I’ve not had my hair done in over a year and my shelves of fancy skincare products haven’t been touched in some time. So I decided to see what ‘glow up’ suggestions Chat GPT might have for this frazzled new mum and sent it a photo with the prompt to help me look ‘as amazing as possible’.

I felt like the picture I uploaded was a fair representation of my day-to-day face – I’m wearing some make-up, but I still look tired and unfiltered.

There are many things Chat GPT refuses to do – it won’t predict politics and sports, or help you commit crime – so a small part of me hoped it would come back with a sensitive, cloying message about how I am already my most amazing self. But, alas, the bot quickly deemed many, many areas of my face worthy of an upgrade with a dogmatic seven-point plan. Much of the advice I’d been expecting. Firstly, there were a lot of generic tips about sleeping more and upgrading my style. It gave me some advice for a ‘radiance routine’ using pricey medical-grade skincare products.

I was suspicious that all the feedback would be general and it wouldn’t use the image I sent it at all – but sure enough it had lots to say about my specific shortfalls, including my straw-like hair which could do with ‘lighter balayage, a professional gloss treatment and some face-framing layers’.

My eyebrows needed ‘lamination and tinting’ to ‘make them look fuller and more structured, especially at the arch and tail’. My eyelashes are too straight ‘which can make your eyes look slightly tired or less open in photos’. And I’d benefit from some Botox for my crow’s feet (I hadn’t realised I had any). It had dozens of expensive treatments, curated just for me. There were hydrafacials, vampire facials and chemical peels to treat my dry skin alone, and for each suggested appointment, it was happy to provide booking links to high-end locations on Harley Street.

One attribute of AI is that it’s always polite unless instructed otherwise, and this was no exception. But the way it pulled out my every flaw and feature and offered ways to correct them was unsettling. It felt as if I was being pummelled by someone who was eerily smiling throughout.

Like almost every woman I know, I have a number of insecurities about the way I look, but I always thought these were probably in my head. Surely when the world looked at me, they didn’t see all the problems I did?

But apparently I was right to feel insecure. Even the flaws I didn’t think were particularly visible in the photo, the bot managed to sniff out. The foremost of these is that I have a weak jaw – it’s the attribute I dislike most about myself and one of the first it told me I should correct. Although, of course, it said it ‘politely’.

‘You have delicate lower facial features, but it could be more defined, especially from a side angle,’ it wrote.

It hadn’t even seen me from the side and yet it knew! The bot feels like a boss that hates you but has gone through HR training so they give you a passive-aggressive compliment to counteract every insult. ‘A s**t sandwich’ is what we used to call it when I worked in an office.

Before I started booking a plethora of appointments to become my best self, I asked it to calculate how much all its suggestions would cost me. About £12,000 a year, requiring appointments multiple times a week.

It immediately offered me a glow up on ‘a budget’ (£2,000-3,000 a year), clearly sensing my hesitation on spending such a fortune on what I’d up until recently thought was a perfectly adequate face.

So finally I asked it to generate an image of me post all the suggested updates and changes. The result shows how the bot thinks I want to look. I let out a little gasp when it appeared on my screen. I don’t think there’s any procedure on this planet that could have me looking like this cartoonish AI character, complete with high-hoisted breasts, impossibly flawless skin and a perfectly sculpted jawline.

I realised instantly I didn’t want to look like that. I like looking like me with all my imperfections.

But I would warn anyone tempted to upload a selfie to avoid at all costs: it’s a sadomasochistic flogging of all your insecurities. You don’t need to know all the flaws a robot can see in you. It’s like having a sarky younger sister able to pin-point your weakness – except she’s got the precision and accuracy of the Terminator.

Through all its suggestions the bot forgot one key (human) component – that in order to look as amazing as possible, I shouldn’t be left feeling insecure by its long, long list of ways I need to improve. And that’s the advice I would give to the bride-to-be who’s following Chat CPT’s instructions in the run-up to her wedding.

I hope she’s taking them with a pinch of salt and not letting them affect how she sees herself, because the best look on a bride is always going to be a confident smile, and you shouldn’t risk that on any AI advice… But I am considering getting that lash lift.