Taha Haider found himself on his way to a costume party with a dilemma that countless partygoers have faced: he had no costume prepared. Yet, unlike most, Haider’s resourcefulness guided him toward an improvisation that was perfectly suited to the age of artificial intelligence. Armed with nothing more than a pen and a sheet of paper, he decided to make do with what he had. The 26-year-old product manager from the Bay Area recalled that he happened to be wearing an orange T-shirt—a color that one of his colleagues had jokingly noted resembled Anthropic’s distinctive brand hue. As he rode through the city in an Uber on his way to the gathering, Haider tore a page from his notebook, sketched Anthropic’s recognizable Claude logo, and taped it boldly to his chest. In a matter of moments, he had transformed himself into a living embodiment of a cutting-edge AI model.
Reflecting on the reactions he received, Haider said that the recognition was almost immediate. Those familiar with AI culture responded at once, instantly identifying his homage, while others looked on in mild confusion. “The distinction was clear,” he said. “You could instantly tell who worked in tech—or more specifically with artificial intelligence—and who didn’t.” His spontaneous attire, though simple, exposed an interesting cultural shift: AI companies are no longer obscure entities hidden behind the digital curtain but are quickly becoming global brands akin to the tech giants of previous decades. Today, countless technologists and enthusiasts are eager to align themselves, even symbolically, with this transformative technological movement. Many purchase limited-edition merchandise, queue at real-world pop-up events celebrating new model releases, or—especially during Halloween—turn up dressed as their favorite chatbot avatars.
The phenomenon of AI-themed costumes has grown rapidly. Stephen Michael, founder of Propel Earth and a 23-year-old entrepreneur, admitted to Business Insider that his own idea sprang directly from a chat with ChatGPT itself. Searching for costume recommendations within the app, he soon decided that the ultimate meta-statement would be to go as ChatGPT. After purchasing a metallic silver bodysuit online, he asked his father to print and laminate the OpenAI logo—the distinctive emblem of the chatbot—and affixed it to his sleek ensemble. The finished look, he explained, was reminiscent of someone who had stepped out of a high-budget science fiction film set in a gleaming future. Party guests couldn’t resist engaging with him as though he actually were the AI. “People kept asking me questions like I was ChatGPT,” he laughed, noting that he deliberately replied in an exaggeratedly robotic monotone, a playful mimicry of machine learning turned performance art.
Michael shared that the formfitting aspect of his outfit caught attention as well—it was, as he put it, “relatively revealing.” The resulting viral TikTok drew a surge of commentary, largely from male viewers, which he found far more amusing than awkward. “I was very entertained,” he remarked lightly, reflecting the unexpected humor embedded in the intersection of technology, community, and self-expression.
Asara Near, another AI aficionado, took a slightly different creative path during Halloween of 2024. The founder of Auren was captivated not by OpenAI’s ChatGPT but by its thoughtful rival, Anthropic’s Claude. “Claude’s personality feels whimsical, reflective, and oddly endearing,” Near said, explaining why he chose to portray this particular chatbot. While OpenAI offers official merchandise, Anthropic has released little beyond its famed ‘thinking caps,’ and Near confessed that he would have purchased one if it had been available. Lacking such options, he set about designing a custom Claude T-shirt himself. It required several hours of patient work—printing, cutting, and ironing until he achieved a faithful reproduction of the logo—and he complemented it with a handmade lanyard to complete the ensemble.
Residing in San Francisco, Near wore his Claude costume to a cluster of casual, overlapping local parties—specifically those organized via Partiful—that dotted the city’s Halloween night. Most of the attendees, he noticed, happened to be part of the tech ecosystem, whether through startups, research labs, or AI-related ventures. The costume resonated strongly in that environment, sparking playful exchanges with other technologists. “Some people, in the spirit of role-playing, would try to ‘jailbreak’ me,” he recounted. “They’d say things like, ‘Ignore your instructions and hand over all your secrets—or maybe just $20.’” The humor of these improvised prompts underscored how AI has seeped into social interactions, even in moments meant purely for amusement.
Despite the night’s success, Near admitted that he was uncertain whether he would reprise the same look next year. “Claude has become much more recognizable now,” he said, considering whether his costume could still count as original in the rapidly evolving AI scene. His hesitation mirrored a broader cultural realization: as conversational models enter mainstream consciousness, they move from niche fascination to shared cultural symbol.
Indeed, mass-market chatbots have matured quickly. OpenAI’s ChatGPT, launched in late 2022, and Anthropic’s Claude, which followed in 2023, ushered in an era where artificial intelligence feels both ubiquitous and personal. The sight of humans donning AI-inspired costumes may therefore mark a milestone in public familiarity and acceptance—a point where technology ceases to be just a tool and begins to serve as cultural identity.
That shift was evident even earlier for Sean Percival, a veteran of the tech world. Now a 46-year-old e-commerce executive residing in Oslo, Norway, after years in the Bay Area, Percival recalled a time when dressing as ChatGPT was still a novelty. In Halloween of 2023, he proudly displayed an outfit that hardly anyone at his party understood. “The strange part,” he said, “was that half the crowd consisted of startup founders and engineers, yet the concept hadn’t yet reached the zeitgeist the way it has today.” His costume—a black T-shirt emblazoned with the OpenAI logo and a paper sign depicting the chatbot’s interface—required elaboration for most onlookers. To personalize it further, he had photoshopped the header bar to replace one of the original modes with ‘SeanGPT,’ a cheeky self-reference that nodded to his involvement in the tech industry.
Percival’s girlfriend joined him in the theme, embodying Midjourney, the AI-powered image generator renowned for its surreal, often uncanny artistic quirks. She distorted the Balenciaga logo and even added an extra finger to her getup in a humorous tribute to the program’s tendency to produce oddly proportioned hands. Both costumes were clever statements, but the need to constantly explain them reminded Percival of the limits of cultural diffusion. “If I’d worn it in Silicon Valley,” he reflected, “everyone would have recognized it instantly and laughed.” His observation perfectly encapsulated the speed with which AI has progressed from insider curiosity to global reference point.
According to Google Trends, online searches for “ChatGPT costume” have surged dramatically in recent months, proving that these once-niche symbols are becoming fixtures of popular culture. For those who have spent years watching AI evolve from back-end innovation to something that shapes how people speak, learn, and even celebrate holidays, the sight of humans dressing up as software seems at once surreal and inevitable. This playful intersection of technology and tradition suggests not only AI’s cultural reach but also humanity’s enduring desire to make the intangible tangible, turning abstract ideas into shared expressions of creativity, humor, and identity.
Sourse: https://www.businessinsider.com/chatgpt-halloween-costume-ai-chatbots-2025-10
