AI-created “Virtual Influencers” are Stealing Business From Humans

upstart writes:

Brands are turning to hyper-realistic, AI-generated influencers for promotions:

Pink-haired Aitana Lopez is followed by more than 200,000 people on social media. She posts selfies from concerts and her bedroom, while tagging brands such as hair care line Olaplex and lingerie giant Victoria's Secret.

Brands have paid about $1,000 a post for her to promote their products on social media-despite the fact that she is entirely fictional.

Aitana is a "virtual influencer" created using artificial intelligence tools, one of the hundreds of digital avatars that have broken into the growing $21 billion content creator economy.

Their emergence has led to worry from human influencers their income is being cannibalized and under threat from digital rivals. That concern is shared by people in more established professions that their livelihoods are under threat from generative AI-technology that can spew out humanlike text, images and code in seconds.

But those behind the hyper-realistic AI creations argue they are merely disrupting an overinflated market.

"We were taken aback by the skyrocketing rates influencers charge nowadays. That got us thinking, 'What if we just create our own influencer?'" said Diana Nunez, co-founder of the Barcelona-based agency The Clueless, which created Aitana. "The rest is history. We unintentionally created a monster. A beautiful one, though."

"It is not influencing purchase like a human influencer would, but it is driving awareness, favourability and recall for the brand," said Becky Owen, global chief marketing and innovation officer at Billion Dollar Boy, and former head of Meta's creator innovations team.

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