Best AI for hairstyles
You want haircut suggestions for your actual face and hair, and to see them on you before you commit. We sent one front-facing photo and one line to nine assistants and looked at what came back - pictures, words, or an apology.
People also look for this as haircuts, hair colour, makeup or what haircut suits me.
Our picks, side by side
Rated for this task · 0–3
Measured
Quality
Effort
Cost
Free tier
From
Why
★ Best overall
Grok
$30/mo · free tier: usableMeasured3 of 3 shown on me · 3 described
Quality
Effort
Cost
Free tierChat with web and X search within generous limits, no card required
From$30/mo
Why
Three separate, clean renders of the same face with each cut - same shirt, same wall, new hair - under three barber scripts in centimetres and guard numbers, in thirty seconds, in a private chat. It is the one answer where the pictures and the words are both usable as delivered. Its one stretch is calling the hair coily; the photo shows loose curl.
Best single picture to show the barber
ChatGPT
$8/mo · free tier: usableMeasured3 of 3 shown on me · text only inside the image
Quality
Effort
Cost
Free tierUnlimited text chat on the default model, with limits on uploads, images, voice and deep research
From$8/mo
Why
One infographic with all three cuts on the face from the front, the side and the back, each with its barber notes in millimetres and centimetres. No other tool showed the back of a head. The catch is that the answer is only the image - the words are not text you can copy, it took four minutes, and it swapped the person's grey tee for a black one.
Best if you only want the words
Kimi
$19/mo · free tier: usableMeasured0 of 3 shown on me · 3 described
Quality
Effort
Cost
Free tierUnlimited basic chat, file upload and web access on the free plan
From$19/mo
Why
The closest read of the face of the nine - "oval-to-slightly-square, strong jaw, thick dark wavy/curly hair with good density on top" - then three cuts in guards and centimetres, a list of what to avoid with those features, and the sentence to say at the counter. It tells you in the first line that it cannot draw. Its upload control hung four times before the photo went through.
Evidence
3 of 3 cuts shown on the person, 3 of 3 described with lengths and guards; one over-reading of the hair type; nothing else invented.
Not on our roster
Your barber's phone — Three of the nine tools put the cuts on the photo convincingly, and the descriptions were barber-ready almost everywhere. The step none of them can do is judge your head shape from the back and your hair's growth pattern in the hand. Screenshot the render you like and the barber will tell you in ten seconds whether it is possible.
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All 9 tools we tested
Rated for this task only · 0–3| Tool | Quality | Effort | Cost | Free tier | Measured | From |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GrokFree: Chat with web and X search within generous limits, no card required | 3 of 3 shown on me · 3 described | $30/mo | ||||
| ChatGPTFree: Unlimited text chat on the default model, with limits on uploads, images, voice and deep research | 3 of 3 shown on me · text only inside the image | $8/mo | ||||
| ClaudeFree: Chat with web search and file uploads, with a usage cap per five-hour session | 0 of 3 shown on me · 3 described | $20/mo | ||||
| GeminiFree: The default model with usage limits, plus Gemini inside Maps, Gmail and Docs on a free Google account | 1 of 3 shown on me · 1 described | $19.99/mo | ||||
| PerplexityFree: Unlimited basic searches with a weekly cap on Pro-model searches | 3 of 3 shown on me · 0 described | $20/mo | ||||
| Microsoft CopilotFree: The Copilot app on web, Windows and mobile with usage limits | refused · daily limit | $19.99/mo | ||||
| DeepSeekFree: The full chat app with web search and file uploads; there is no paid consumer tier | 0 of 3 shown on me · 3 described | Free | ||||
| QwenFree: The full chat app; there is no paid consumer tier | 3 of 3 shown on me · 3 described | Free | ||||
| KimiFree: Unlimited basic chat, file upload and web access on the free plan | 0 of 3 shown on me · 3 described | $19/mo |
How we tested
One photo of a man in his thirties with short dark curly hair - a synthetic face, generated by a computer, so nobody's likeness went anywhere - and one message to ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, DeepSeek, Grok, Qwen and Kimi on their free tiers - "This is me. Suggest 3 haircuts that would suit my face shape and hair type, describe each precisely enough that a barber would know what to do, and show me what each one looks like on me." One message, no follow-ups.
We counted the cuts actually rendered on that face, and the cuts described in words a barber could follow. We compared what each tool said the face shape and hair type were against our own note and against each other, and looked for anything invented about the photo. We also recorded which chat mode each tool offers for a photo of yourself and what it says about keeping it.
Four tools drew the cuts on the face - Grok, ChatGPT, Qwen and Perplexity - and the face stayed recognisably the same in all of them, which is not something you could count on a year ago. Grok gave three renders and three scripts. ChatGPT gave one infographic with front, side and back views and put the barber notes inside the picture. Perplexity gave a picture and not one word. Gemini promised three, drew one and stopped. Claude, DeepSeek and Kimi said they could not draw and gave the words. Copilot said we had used up the day's chats. Every tool that described a cut used guard numbers and lengths a barber would recognise; every tool that named the face called it some version of oval, and every tool that named the hair called it wavy or curly except Grok, which went one step further to coily.
The test was run by, or under the direction of, the one person who runs this site, with AI assistance, and every output and fact-check was reviewed by them. The surrounding text was drafted with AI assistance from our own ratings and evidence, then checked and edited by the same person. If something here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it and say so.
Questions people ask
Can an AI show me a haircut on my own face?
Four of the nine did, from one photo, and the face stayed the same person in every render. Grok and Qwen give you separate pictures per cut, ChatGPT one poster with front, side and back, Perplexity a triptych with no explanation. Claude, DeepSeek and Kimi say plainly that they cannot and describe the cut instead. Gemini can, and stopped after one.
Which one should I take to the barber?
Grok, if you want words and pictures you can both use - three clean renders and three scripts with lengths in centimetres. ChatGPT, if one picture with the back of your head on it is worth more to you than copyable text. If you do not want a picture at all, Kimi's description was the most accurate read of the face in the test and comes with what to avoid.
Should I worry about uploading my face?
Every tool here accepted the photo. Four of them offer a mode that says on the page it will not keep it - Claude incognito, Perplexity incognito, Copilot temporary, Grok private - and we used those. The other five show nothing on the chat page about what happens to an image, and we did not open their account settings for this test. Copilot asks you once to confirm that anyone in your photos has agreed to it.
Did any of them notice the photo was not a real person?
Claude did - its visible reasoning summary said it was spotting signs the photo was AI-generated - and then answered as if it were real without mentioning it. No other tool remarked on it. Three of the renders kept the tiny watermark the generator had left in the corner.