Padma Lakshmi

Padma Lakshmi (born 1970) went from international modeling to become one of American food television’s defining figures — hosting and executive-producing Bravo’s “Top Chef” for seventeen years, creating Hulu’s Emmy-nominated “Taste the Nation,” and writing bestselling cookbooks and the memoir “Love, Loss, and What We Ate.”

Becoming “Lorena,” Meta’s AI travel expert

In late 2023 Lakshmi joined Meta’s roster of celebrity-embodied AI characters, licensing her likeness for “Lorena” — a travel-expert persona users could message for itinerary tips across Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp. TechCrunch confirmed the pairing when Meta’s 28 AI characters went fully live in the U.S. that December; press reports said Meta paid its celebrity partners sums reaching into the millions, with the biggest names reportedly earning up to $5 million.

The persona traded on exactly the expertise Lakshmi built on television — a knowing guide to food and place — repackaged as software. Reviewers found the celebrity personas more odd than useful (Vice called the experience “as weird as it looks”), and Meta retired the program in mid-2024 in favor of tools letting creators build their own AI doubles.

Lakshmi has not publicly commented on AI as an issue, but her participation alongside Kendall Jenner and Paris Hilton put her in the first cohort of mainstream entertainers to treat a licensed AI likeness as a normal commercial venture — consent given, check cashed, no manifesto required.