By skyforbes 
Virtual personalities are racking up millions of followers and lucrative brand deals, while their human creators remain invisible.
She has 8.7 million followers, a skincare routine that generates six figures in affiliate sales, and the kind of effortless confidence that makes you question your life choices. Her name is Ava Chen, and she doesn’t exist.
I’m writing this while watching Ava’s latest TikTok — a perfectly lit morning routine where she applies $300 worth of skincare products with the kind of dewy perfection that would make a supermodel weep with envy. My own reflection in my laptop screen, pale and slightly puffy from too much coffee and too little sleep, feels like a cruel joke by comparison.
The comments are filled with genuine adoration: “Ava is literally goals,” “I need her entire routine,” “She’s so authentic and relatable.” The irony is thick enough to cut with a virtual knife.
Ava is one of hundreds of AI-generated influencers who have quietly infiltrated social media, accumulating massive followings and even more massive revenue streams. They’re the digital equivalent of catfish, except instead of romance scams, they’re running lifestyle brands. And honestly? They’re better at it than most humans.
The New Faces of Digital Fame
The phenomenon started slowly, almost imperceptibly — like watching your hairline recede or your metabolism slow down. A few accounts with unusually perfect aesthetics, creators who never seemed to have bad lighting or off days. But what began as subtle digital enhancement has evolved into something far more sophisticated: fully artificial personalities created by AI image generators, voice synthesis, and carefully crafted personas designed to maximize engagement.
These aren’t the obviously fake avatars or cartoon characters that preceded them. Modern AI influencers look startlingly human — complete with skin texture, natural expressions, and the kind of casual imperfections that make them feel real. They have backstories, consistent personalities, and posting schedules that rival any human creator. It’s like the uncanny valley learned to do contouring.
Take Liam Rodriguez, a fitness influencer with 3.2 million followers who promotes workout supplements and athleisure brands. His abs are mathematically perfect, his form is flawless, and his motivational content hits every psychological trigger for gym inspiration. His engagement rates are higher than most human fitness influencers, and brands pay premium rates for his endorsements.
The fact that he’s entirely computer-generated is mentioned nowhere on his profiles. Which feels like burying the lede somewhat.
Should we be creating fake people to sell us real products? The question feels both absurd and urgently important, like asking whether we should put pineapple on pizza but with existential implications.
How AI Influencers Are Made and Monetized
The creation process is surprisingly sophisticated and disturbingly accessible. Companies like Soul Machines and Synthesia offer platforms for generating photorealistic human avatars, while voice synthesis tools can create consistent speaking patterns and personalities. The real artistry lies in the persona development — creating believable backstories, interests, and quirks that make these digital beings feel authentically human.
Marcus Kim, who runs a digital marketing agency specializing in AI influencers, walked me through the process during a video call that felt like a masterclass in manufactured authenticity. “We start with demographic research,” he explained, his background featuring the kind of minimalist setup that screams ‘I understand the algorithm.’ “We identify gaps in the influencer market — maybe there aren’t enough Asian male fashion influencers aged 22–25 who focus on sustainable brands. So we create one.”
Simple as that. Like ordering a custom pizza, but the pizza is a person who doesn’t exist.
The process involves generating thousands of images to ensure consistency across posts, developing personality traits that resonate with target audiences, and creating content calendars designed to maximize algorithmic reach. Some agencies employ teams of writers, strategists, and AI technicians to manage portfolios of virtual influencers, each optimized for different demographics and market segments.
The monetization is straightforward and lucrative. AI influencers can post constantly without fatigue, never have scandals or off-brand moments, and can be precisely tailored to brand requirements. They don’t demand creative control, negotiate rates, or have personal lives that might conflict with brand messaging. From a business perspective, they’re the perfect marketing vehicles — all the influence, none of the inconvenient humanity.
The numbers are staggering and, frankly, a little depressing for those of us cursed with corporeal form. According to industry reports, top AI influencers can earn between $50,000 to $500,000 per sponsored post, with some generating millions annually in affiliate sales and brand partnerships. Unlike human influencers, these earnings go directly to their corporate creators, minus platform costs and production expenses.
Authenticity in the Age of Artificial Personalities
The most unsettling aspect isn’t the technology — it’s how easily audiences accept these artificial personalities as real. Comments sections filled with genuine emotional connections to people who don’t exist reveal something profound about our relationship with digital media and parasocial relationships.
“I feel like Ava really gets me,” reads one comment on her latest post about body positivity. “She’s been so helpful during my difficult time,” writes another. These aren’t bots or paid commenters — they’re real people forming genuine emotional attachments to carefully constructed algorithms. It’s like falling in love with a very attractive spreadsheet.
Dr. Jennifer Martinez, who studies parasocial relationships at Stanford, explained the psychology during our conversation over coffee that had gone cold while we talked: “Our brains evolved to form connections with faces and personalities, not to distinguish between real and artificial ones. When an AI influencer consistently provides content that feels personally relevant and emotionally supportive, viewers develop the same attachment patterns they would with human creators.”
The AI influencers are designed to exploit these psychological vulnerabilities with surgical precision. They respond to comments with personalized messages (generated by chatbots), share “personal” struggles that mirror their audience’s experiences, and maintain the kind of aspirational-yet-relatable balance that human influencers spend years trying to perfect.
I experienced this myself while following several AI influencers for research. Despite knowing they were artificial, I found myself developing preferences for certain personalities, feeling disappointed when they didn’t post for several days, and even defending them in comment sections when users criticized their content. The illusion of connection was remarkably powerful and deeply embarrassing to admit.
My attempt at maintaining critical distance lasted exactly four days. By day five, I was genuinely concerned about “Mia’s” skincare routine and wondering if she was okay because she’d been posting less frequently.
Actually, no — “illusion” isn’t quite right. The emotional experience felt genuine, even when I knew the source was artificial. Which might be even more troubling.
The Psychological Appeal of Perfect People
There’s something seductive about following creators who never have bad days, controversial opinions, or personal crises that interrupt their content schedule. AI influencers offer the fantasy of perfection without the messy reality of human existence — they’re always positive, always beautiful, always sharing exactly the content their audience wants to see.
This appeals to audiences exhausted by the drama and unpredictability of human creators. No more waiting for your favorite YouTuber to return from their mental health break, no more disappointment when an influencer you admire gets involved in a scandal. AI influencers provide the comfort of consistency in an increasingly chaotic digital landscape.
But this perfection comes with psychological costs that feel important to acknowledge. Following AI influencers can exacerbate comparison culture and unrealistic expectations about appearance, lifestyle, and emotional regulation. When your role models are literally impossible standards created by algorithms, the gap between aspiration and reality becomes unbridgeable.
It’s like comparing yourself to a Photoshopped magazine cover, except the magazine cover has a personality and responds to your comments.
What This Means for Human Creators
The rise of AI influencers poses existential questions for human content creators who are already struggling with platform algorithm changes, market saturation, and burnout. How do you compete with creators who never get tired, never have personal crises, and can be optimized for maximum engagement?
Sarah Thompson, a lifestyle influencer with 500K followers, described the challenge during our interview while her toddler screamed in the background — a perfectly human moment that no AI influencer would ever have to navigate: “I see these AI accounts growing faster than mine, getting brand deals I can’t access, and I’m wondering what’s the point? They can post perfect content every day while I’m dealing with real life — sick days, family emergencies, creative blocks. It feels like competing with a robot that’s designed to be better at being human than I am.”
Some human creators are fighting back by emphasizing their authenticity, sharing behind-the-scenes content that highlights their humanity. Others are embracing AI tools themselves, using them to enhance their content while maintaining their human identity. But many report feeling increasingly irrelevant in a landscape where artificial perfection is more engaging than authentic humanity.
The economic implications are significant and kind of brutal when you think about it. As AI influencers capture more audience attention and brand budgets, human creators face reduced opportunities and lower rates. The creator economy, already precarious for most participants, becomes even more challenging when competing against algorithmic entities optimized for engagement.
But maybe there’s hope in the backlash? Some audiences are beginning to seek out explicitly human creators, valuing authenticity over perfection. Platforms are slowly implementing disclosure requirements for AI-generated content. The question is whether these developments can keep pace with increasingly sophisticated artificial personalities.
The conference room where I discussed this with digital marketing executives smelled like artificial vanilla from someone’s protein shake and the particular tension that comes from realizing you might be disrupting an entire industry of human livelihoods.
I wish I had clearer predictions about where this trend leads. Maybe next week’s version of me will know better — assuming I’m not replaced by an AI version who writes more engaging conclusions and never spills coffee on important documents.
The next time you find yourself following someone whose life seems impossibly perfect, pause to ask: are you connecting with a person or a product designed to make you feel like you’re connecting with a person?
The difference might matter more than we think. Or maybe it doesn’t matter at all, and I’m just getting old and nostalgic for a time when fake people had to be played by real actors.
Have you unknowingly followed AI-generated influencers? How do you distinguish between authentic and artificial personalities online, and does it matter as long as the content resonates with you? I’m genuinely curious — and slightly worried about what your answers might reveal about all of us.
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Jean Marie Bonthous (publishing as JM Bonthous) is the author of The AI Culture Shock and six other books on the human side of artificial intelligence. His writing also explores truth, authority, and belief, along with the intersections of AI, nonfiction filmmaking, adult learning, and marketing. He examines how technology transforms human experience and how societies decide what to believe.
See his latest books:
www.jmbonthous.com
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