8.3 billion faces, zero infrastructure: the AI likeness market nobody is serving

AI for Founders with Ryan Estes · Sep 7, 2026 · 59m

Sixty percent of the faces training AI were never asked

Katrien Grobler woke up on the 29th of December and saw a word written above her bed. Not metaphorically. She describes seeing the name in her mind's eye, getting up, and telling her team they were pivoting that day.

The word was Twinnin.

She had spent the previous year running AI KAT, making AI-generated video ads for clients like Capital.com and Reckitt's Dettol brand. On one project she needed a trader character. Rather than generate a synthetic face, she pulled photos of an investor she knew, ran them through Nano Banana, and built…