Phota Labs is an AI research and product company, started in 2025 by Cecilia Zhang and Zach Xia. Both were senior AI researchers at Adobe before that. The company builds technology that keeps a real person looking like themselves in AI photos. Andreessen Horowitz led its first round of funding, announced in September 2025.

What is an identity layer?

It is a way of teaching an AI what one specific person looks like, kept separate from everything else it knows. Most AI image tools have learned the world — buildings, weather, clothes, light. They have not learned you. An identity layer adds that missing part, so the face in the picture stays the same face every time.

What does the Phota Labs partnership mean if I use GoStudio?

Better photos of you, from a company that works on this one problem full time. We did not build the identity technology ourselves. We picked a partner who is excellent at it. Our job is to put the result one click away, so you never have to think about which model is doing what.

Is it honest to use an AI photo of yourself?

We think so, when it is really about you. The photo is made by AI. The person, the story and the claim behind it are not. A good studio photo was never you as you walked in the door either — lights, makeup and retouching were always part of it. Nobody calls that fake.

Does GoStudio allow deepfakes, nudes, or editing photos of someone who did not agree?

No. GoStudio does not allow NSFW content, nude images, deepfakes, or edits of a person who has not agreed to them. This is a rule we enforce, and it has cost us paying customers. We kept it anyway. An identity layer makes it easier to create pictures of a real person, so the rules around it matter more, not less.

Do I have to put my own face in the picture to use GoStudio?

No. Plenty of people use GoStudio for their products, not themselves — a clean product shot, a lifestyle photo, a quick edit. "Your studio" means the work is yours, not that you are in it.

Why We Partnered With Phota Labs

Kanika BhattFounder, GoStudio.aiSeptember 11, 20263 min read

Last updated: September 11, 2026

GoStudio.ai has partnered with Phota Labs to use its identity layer. An identity layer teaches an AI model what one specific person looks like, kept separate from everything else the model knows about the world. Phota Labs was founded by Cecilia Zhang and Zach Xia, who were both senior AI researchers at Adobe. Andreessen Horowitz led its first round of funding.

AI can make endless faces that belong to no one. We are here for the one that belongs to you.

Contents

Why we started GoStudio

We started GoStudio for one reason. We wanted you to have really good pictures of yourself, the kind you would happily show to everyone.

The first version ran on Flux 1, through Astria. The models were not very good back then. Even after training on your photos, the face came out close, but not right.

Then Nano Banana and ChatGPT arrived. Today anyone can make a good image in seconds. That problem is solved.

But a good image is not a good image of you. These models have learned the world. They have not learned your face. For a headshot, your face is the whole job. That is the problem we have been working on since day one, and it is the problem Phota Labs was built to solve.

Why Phota Labs

Cecilia Zhang and Zach Xia were AI researchers at Adobe. They left to build an identity layer: a way to teach an AI what one specific person looks like, and keep it. Their line for it is the one we had been reaching for since our first headshot:

Generic models learned the world. They’ve never learned you.
Phota Labs

So we partnered with them. Today, GoStudio’s headshots run on Phota Labs’ identity layer. The big models make the picture. Phota makes sure the person in it is you.

The Phota Labs and GoStudio.ai logos side by side above the words “Collaborating for the future”

Your best LinkedIn photo

We are here to give you the best LinkedIn photo you have ever had. I can tell you plainly: these are the best headshots you will get from any platform right now.

Upload a few photos of yourself, and what comes back is you. The same face, the same person, in the light and the setting a studio would have given you. Not a stranger who looks a bit like you. That is what the partnership is for, and it is what we will keep working on.

A LinkedIn photo does a quiet job. It is the first thing a recruiter, a client or a stranger sees before they read a word about you, and it decides whether they read on. It should look like you on a good day: the same face people meet in the room, in clean light, dressed for the work you do. That is the photo we are here to make, and with Phota Labs’ identity layer behind it, it is the photo you get.

Why We Partnered With Phota Labs

Why we started GoStudio

Why Phota Labs

Your best LinkedIn photo

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