AI Judge Takes Center Stage at Excire Photo Contest

German artificial intelligence (AI) company PRC, known for its AI-powered Excire photo-management software, has announced a new photo contest featuring AI judging.

People in Focus Contest Details and Prizes

Excire’s “People in Focus” competition runs from June 1 to June 30. It invites photographers to submit their best people-centric photos, whether these are portraits, candid street scenes, or everyday moments. The contest is free to enter and open to both amateur and professional photographers. A prize pool of $7,000 is up for grabs.

A New Era of Judging AI Powered and Instant

What sets this contest apart from other photography competitions is its unique judging process. It will not be judged by a jury of professional photographers or industry experts. Instead, Excire’s in-house AI model will entirely judge it. The company developed this AI exclusively to analyze and score photos based on their aesthetic qualities. This means that photos are judged instantaneously as they are entered. Furthermore, the contest will feature a live leaderboard, allowing photographers to see how their submissions compare to the competition in real-time.

When entries close on June 30 at 11:59 PM CEST, the first-place winner will be crowned and receive $4,000. Second-place wins $2,000, and third-place rounds things out with a still-impressive $1,000 prize. Additionally, all participants will receive a 20% discount code to use on Excire products, valid through June 30, 2025.

Excire Celebrates Dual Anniversaries with Innovative Contest

This contest marks a pair of milestones for PRC. It is the company’s 20th anniversary and the 10th anniversary of Excire software. PetaPixel has covered the software many times over the years, including most recently for Excire Foto 2025, which promises to be the company’s fastest photo culling software yet. Excire Foto supports natural language search prompts, AI-powered sorting and culling, automatic AI keywording, and more.

The Vision Behind Excire AI in Photography

“Photographers spend hundreds of hours each year on tedious photo-management tasks, from organizing and finding specific shots to selecting the best images from a vacation or photoshoot,” says Professor Erhardt Barth, CEO of PRC and machine learning expert at the University of Lübeck. “Excire’s AI helps photographers bypass these time-consuming tasks so they can spend more time taking photos and appreciating their own hard work.”

Excire states its AI judge has been trained by expert photographers using hundreds of thousands of photos. The company says this AI-judged contest, while designed to give photographers a fun way to win money and open up a dialogue surrounding the use of AI in photography, also has the benefit of “extreme fairness.”

Can AI Offer True Fairness in Photo Competitions

“Human judges can be inconsistent and biased,” PRC says. “Excire’s AI judge, however, analyzes submissions with unerring consistency.”

“Of course, artificial intelligence can’t replace human taste,” Professor Barth adds. “But it can objectively analyze what makes a photo great. Excire’s AI offers impartial evaluations without subjective bias and has already served as a juror in several prestigious photo contests.”

How to Enter the People in Focus Competition

Photographers will be able to enter their images on this dedicated competition page beginning on June 1. There they can also find the complete rules and regulations for the competition.

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Image credits: Excire