Dubai's AI-powered ‘haircut pods’: Are the viral videos fake?

If you’ve found yourself walking around Downtown Dubai in search of AI-powered ‘haircut pods’, you wouldn’t have been the only one.

In a series of videos going viral on social media, people are shown heading to futuristic-looking pods and putting their heads into a dedicated slot. Their locks are sucked into the pod and chopped or restyled. The result is a sleeker looking crop of hair. The pods are being called AI-powered Haircut Machine 3.0.

TikTokers, who have made the video (and tutorials on how to use) the pods go viral, have also dismissed the idea that the pods are real. They argue that the tech to do this doesn’t exist at the moment.

And we’d like to point out – we are seeing these pods online, but where exactly can you access them? The information remains conspicuously absent from the posts.

Also, how does it work on different types and textures? Will someone with curly locks walk away without a disastrous hair day?

And would you stand still - like a horse with its nose in the trough - for time enough for the trim?

As we move towards automation, the question remains, would you leave your tresses in the hands of an AI-powered machination? It's giving Jetson's vibes.

For some reason, we don’t really see the end of salons just yet.