There's a new crop of it-girls, models and influencers dazzling magazine covers and posting on social media. But they're not real.
Brands and creators are harnessing artificial intelligence to mint synthetic influencers, Axios' Erica Pandey writes. SUCKERS!!
Rise of fake influencers
Illustration of a robot model on a magazine cover.
There's a new crop of it-girls, models and influencers dazzling magazine covers and posting on social media. But they're not real.
Brands and creators are harnessing artificial intelligence to mint synthetic influencers, Axios' Erica Pandey writes.
Why it matters: Today's young people are encountering a barrage of information through influencers on TikTok and Instagram — and forming opinions based on their content.
Influencers are dominating fashion and entertainment, and reported live from both political conventions.
The rise of AI influencers could escalate the spread of misinformation or exacerbate biases — and it raises big questions about how much we value humanness in online content.
📱 The big picture: Influencer marketing is a multi-billion dollar industry that pays the bills for tens of millions of people around the world.
It's also one of the most powerful ways for companies to sell things and change minds. Some 80% of consumers say they got interested in a product or service through an influencer's post in 2023, according to Marketing Dive.
🤖 Now, AI influencers are appearing on the scene.
Miquela Sousa — one of the first virtual influencers — has 2.5 million followers on Instagram and has modeled for big brands like Chanel, Prada and Supreme.
Lu do Magalu, a Brazilian synthetic influencer, has a staggering 7.1 million Instagram followers and promotes products from cell phones to makeup.
Zoom in: AI influencers can save companies money and time.
Imagine a fashion brand could get the same juice from putting its new handbag on a virtual influencer rather than sending a dozen bags to human influencers to review.
Plus, for better or for worse, polling shows that Gen Z — the target demographic for influencer marketing — doesn't care if influencers are real or fake.
👀 But AI influencers raise plenty of red flags, experts say.
Real people are checks on what brands want to promote and how, while AI influencers can be manipulated to say anything. It's one thing when a robot is selling you a lip gloss. But consider a robot telling you how to think about an election or a war.
Livelihoods are on the line. For anyone in the business of ideas or content, "it's particularly jarring to see that people might not care about what humans make," says Claire Leibowicz, head of the AI and Media Integrity Program at The Partnership on AI.
And the ability to create hyper-specific influencers that appeal to certain demographics could drive people to over-consume. "You can manipulate consumer behavior even more effectively," Leibowicz says.
Axios