Want to look younger in photos? There's one thing to do…

Question mark over face which is younger.

Approaching my 45th birthday and feeling prematurely middle-aged, I decided to check that I didn't actually look 45. For me, this didn't involve pointing a video camera in the faces of baffled passersby and demanding that they put a number to my wrinkliness, as producers do in certain reality TV shows. No: I turned to two far-less-embarrassing AI programs instead (and, trust me, some of your clients will be doing this too!)

Age detect prefers (or gives a lower age) to the pic with the smile – 36 – as opposed to the one without – 39. Both taken with the same phone, seconds apart. (Image credit: Ariane Sherine)

These websites, age.toolpie.com and howolddoyoulook.com, exhort you to either use an existing photo of yourself or to snap one right there and then. I corralled my long-suffering boyfriend Adam, also aged 45, to take part in the experiment with me.

First, we tried age.toolpie.com. Adam got an accurate but unflattering verdict of age 45 when he stared at the camera stern-faced, but when he relaxed and smiled, the AI knocked five years off, making him 40 – a more successful instant transformation than using any anti-ageing cream.

Left is Adam "stern faced" but the AI sees the smile as 5 years younger. (Image credit: Ariane Sherine)

Being half-Asian and therefore having more melanin in my skin, I had an inbuilt advantage over Adam (beige don't age, baby!) but the AI also preferred it when I smiled. It awarded me a verdict of 39 when I scowled at it hatchet-faced, but relented and gave me 36 when I grinned.

That was still higher than I'd have liked - it didn't even knock a decade off, and I've been very assiduous in slathering on the sunscreen daily since I was 19, so I was a little indignant.

I therefore turned to howolddoyoulook.com, hoping it would provide my vain ego with solace. It did, giving me 28 when I frowned and an impressive 26 when I beamed at it. Truly, smiling opens all the doors.

The AIs assured me that they didn't save or store the photos, which is a shame as they could have developed a database of the vainest, most egotistical people on the internet.

From left to right: detected age 28, 26, 13 (first two photos taken on same day). (Image credit: Ariane Sherine)

Also, I remembered that I had first used the same AI last summer, along with my daughter, who had been 13 at the time. I'd kept screenshots – but while howolddoyoulook.com had correctly judged my daughter as 13 (maybe the process is more straightforward with kids?), it had told me I was 24!

So, less than nine months later, it had aged me by either two or four years, depending on whether I smiled or not. At this rate, it'll say I'm a grandmother by Christmas.

Still, age comes to us all, and there's no turning it back. So, while age-assessing AIs are fun, at some stage everyone must confront their mortality – however old a computer may reckon we are. Happy 45th birthday to me!

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