This has been a unique investigation. In the sense that what I’m about to reveal to you in this post will quite literally, blow your mind (no exaggeration!).
I’ve done influencer campaigns for globally leading brands such as Nestle, J&J, Sanofi, GSK, etc. so I’m a bit familiar with the space.
What really intrigued me was this growing trend of ai / virtual influencers:
Simply put, an AI / Virtual influencer is an influencer that does not exist in real life.
But why is it important to study and understand this trend?
Because these influencers are, quite literally, changing the dynamics of social media and how we interact with people online.
The global virtual influencer market size1 is expected to reach $45.82 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 38.9% compared to 17.9% for the real influencer market.
Lil Miquela, one of the most popular virtual influencers, was named as one of TIME’s most influential people on the internet amongst big names like Rihanna, Donald Trump, Kanye West, etc.
Let that sink in!
Can TIME’s list be influenced? I don’t know. But she is the first virtual / AI influencer to be included in such a list!
This was enough of a reason for me to dig deeper.
So, what’s happening?
Several tech startups and creative studios across the world are creating and enabling the creation of –
1. High-fidelity virtual humans that look exactly like real ones —
See metahuman by unreal engine for example:
As a result, we have AI generated influencers like Lucy that look real, but are actually not —
Don’t want to generate a fake super realistic 3D human model?
Heck, you can clone yourself and in 5 year’s time, nobody will be able to tell the difference!
This YouTuber made a 3D model of himself and nobody could catch him until he reveals it at 2:29 of the video:
2. AI face swap (or deepfake) where the body is real but face is AI —
Naina is created by AVTR meta labs, an AI influencer agency based in India.
She has already collaborated with brands like Puma, Pepsi, Titan, Boat, etc.
There are many tools out there that allows us to create such AI face swap / deepfake videos for free.
The thing to note here is that she’s not completely AI generated. The creators are probably using Indian stock footage (or someone else’s real footage) and superimposing an AI generated Indian face onto the videos.
It’s also worth noting that most of the engagement on such accounts is from low quality followers or AI generated accounts, which we’ll come to later in this post.
3. Animated 3D cartoon characters —
Superplastic has raised over $80M in the last 7 years to venture into the creation of animated characters and launch them into social media.
Their two most popular characters Janky and Guggimon have millions of followers across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
The brand sells tens of millions of dollars in real and virtual products annually and has already collaborated with the likes of Gucci, Fortnite, Mercedes Benz, Tommy Hilfiger, Post Malone, Paris Hilton, Weeknd, and many more.
Their streaming show on Amazon prime is coming soon too!
It is evident that AI is making 3D character generation and animation easier.
The only limiting factor is creativity and imagination.
4. AI robot models —
Created by a startup called Brud, Lil Miquela is perhaps THE most famous virtual influencer of all time!
Brud has raised over $130M from Sequoia Capital and others, and has been acqui-hired by Dapper labs.
These are 3D models that have a human-like robotic look. They proudly disclose themselves as “AI” or “robot” to build tension and conflict amongst humans.
Lil Miquela’s narrative begins as a fictional Instagram profile that portrays her life as a model and a musician.
She has released numerous songs, many of which have millions of views and plays on YouTube. (If you’ve read our previous issue, you’d know that there are real, talented musicians behind such ‘AI songs’)
Over time, she became involved in activism and supporting social causes like #BlackLivesMatter, LGBTQ+ rights, etc.
To add conflict and drama in her story, her creators introduced another fictional character called ‘Bermuda’ who apparently “hacked” her Instagram account and deleted, replaced some of her photos with their own.
Brud has been big on PR. Every significant event in Miquela‘s life gets covered by popular publications around the world.
Well, they’ve rasied over $130M. Gotta make use of that, right?
Funny thing, it actually works to get the attention of big brands.
She has collaborated with the world’s biggest brands — Gucci, Nike, Calvin Klein, Prada, Dior, Vogue, BMW, amongst others.
5. AI generated avatars —
Next up is Aitana Lopez:
She’s a generative AI avatar generated using prompts and perfected using tools to maintain consistency across her photos.
You generate the face once and can then ask AI to generate any photo using that face. All you need to do is make sure that the model features are consistent. This is done through prompting and editing using the many tools that are out there.
The thing to note here is that this profile has grown solely through photos.
What’s more? Her distinctive ‘pink hair’ has caught the attention of the internet:
Another interesting tidbit that few would notice:
She’s a “gamer at heart”. Why? Well, her creator is smart! Gaming is a huge industry, estimated to touch $583 billion by 2030.
This is a great way to differentiate herself from the overwhelming majority of influencers that fall in the lifestyle, fashion, and fitness category.
6. AI generated personas / accounts —
Finally… this was the part that I was truly waiting for. Because this… actually blew my mind!
Are you ready?
See this person:
At first glance, you’d think that this is a real person.
No? just type Stephen Antonson on Google and you will 100% believe that this is a real person.
But no, he’s fake —just like all his followers.
How do I know this?
See this video:
It’s AI generated.
Not only that, the people he tagged are AI generated accounts.
The people who commented are AI generated accounts too!
Here’s proof:
Thankfully, Instagram now shows us which content is made with AI.
But the scary part is that this is not just 1 profile.
The internet is being FLOODED with profiles that appear real, but are not:
You’d think that this is happening only on Instagram,
but I found the same pattern on Twitter/X, TikTok, and YouTube too!
However, it’s much harder to bypass the verification system on Twitter/X and Linkedin.
Key Takeaways:
1. It’s becoming impossible to differentiate b/w a real human and AI model —
To test this, I created a bumble account with photos of an AI generated girl.
It got 5000+ matches within a week:
I later did the same experiment with an AI generated guy as well.
It too, got 400+ matches within a week!
If you have subscribed to our official email newsletter on themarketingfuturist.com, I’ll share the photos we used as well 
2. AI/Virtual Influencer is a rapidly growing industry —
While it’s becoming easier to create virtual influencers, it’s not all bells and whistles.
To begin with, platforms are being flooded with AI accounts, just like Google is being flooded with AI content.
These AI accounts interact with each other in niche, promotional groups, creating fake engagement. So, it’s not real people engaging with these AI accounts. To add to that, there’s no way to detect AI followers as of now.
When a brand decides to do a campaign with an AI influencer — at best their content will be exposed to the humans running these AI accounts unless they amplify it with PR and advertising.
But most brands choose to work with these AI influencers for the novelty factor and to convey a sense of futurism. The question is — will they get repeat business from these brands when the novelty fades away? (because this is inevitably going to happen sooner or later)
This is where storytelling comes in! My thesis is that the only virtual characters/influencers that will survive will be the ones that not only ace storytelling, but are able to uniquely blend their character b/w the digital and the real world to make us feel like we’re a part of their world (imagine Batman or Spiderman coming to life and being able to interact with these characters).
3. AI generated accounts/persona is flooding the internet —
There are two kinds of AI accounts flooding the internet.
One — they disclose that they’re powered by AI.
Two — they manipulate people into thinking that they are real.
Increasingly, platforms are making it mandatory to disclose the use of AI. (Failing to do so may result in such accounts being banned, suspended, or restricted.)
A new C2PA standard is being created and implemented across the board to trace the origin and source of media.
With these developments, it is becoming increasingly clear that we will be able to identify AI generated, or altered content.
However, I believe that most humans are too shallow to check or care about AI generated or altered content.
This is why Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram forwards still work.
This is why nobody cared about Cristiano Ronaldo’s post being AI generated.
This is why AI influencers/models like doja.spice have 200+ paid members:
What all this means for you?
Future predictions and marketing advice:
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