Where the category stands, without the forecasting

Two things are true about generated portraits now that were not obviously true two years ago.

Quality stopped being the differentiator

Almost every product produces realistic headshots. Comparing on realism compares things that no longer differ, which is why the comparison articles all read the same.

The failure people actually hit is different: the output looks like a professionally photographed person who is *almost* them. Plausible and identical are different targets, and the gap widens for faces further from the average.

Price collapsed

The entry point is zero. Any comparison written before this shift describes a market that no longer exists, so the date on an article matters more than its ranking.

What is still unsolved

Consistency across a group over time. Producing one good portrait is routine; producing the forty-first fourteen months later so it matches the first is not, and that is where the actual competition has moved.