AI Influencers: They Never Sleep, Never Fall from Grace, and They're Taking Human Influencers' Jobs

Not long ago, I came across a set of statistics that made me sit there staring at the numbers for a while.

In 2025, the global influencer-marketing market had already reached $23.6 billion.

What does $23.6 billion even mean? In yuan, that's well over a hundred billion.

And it's still climbing. At the industry-standard ~17% annual growth rate, a few more years and that number is racing toward $71 billion.

Brands are spending more and more freely on "hiring people to sell their stuff." But have you noticed something?

It's still the same pot of money. The people pocketing it, though, have quietly changed.

More and more brands are doing business with someone who doesn't exist.

What Exactly Is an AI Influencer?

In plain terms: a virtual character drawn by a computer — with a face, a persona, and a voice — planted on social platforms to sell things for brands.

It never has to show up on camera in the flesh. But just like a real influencer, it has a profile page, followers, and a comment section. Click in, and it looks completely legit.

As for looks, there are roughly two kinds:

• Some look and sound exactly like real people;
• Others are simply adorable cartoon characters — and they sell just as well.

You might say, isn't this just a fancier virtual idol?

Sure, that's what we used to call it a few years ago. The difference today is that they've started making serious money, at scale.

Let Me First Give You 4 Examples That Have Been Running for Years

First, Lu do Magalu. Brazilian retail giant Magazine Luiza created her way back in 2007.

2007! Back then, even the first iPhone was still a novelty — and they'd already put a virtual influencer on Instagram, with 7.8 million followers. Two decades on, she's still on storefronts and in livestreams selling day in and day out. That's not trend-chasing; that's spotting the wave more than a decade early and building a road on it yourself.

Second, Lil Miquela. Her persona: a twenty-something robot who lives in Los Angeles, with 2.4 million Instagram followers. She puts out albums, happily chimes in on trending topics, and followers genuinely befriend her in the comments as if she were a real person. She's even landed long-term partnerships with giants like Prada and Calvin Klein.

Third, Imma. A young Japanese beauty with short pink hair who "lives" in Tokyo. She's a regular in campaigns for luxury houses like Coach and Fendi, and once even gave a virtual speech on stage. When many fans first scroll past her photos, they do a double take: is that actually a human?

Fourth, Shudu. A Black virtual supermodel with 237,000 Instagram followers, featured in the pages of Vogue and in ads for Fenty Beauty.

Put those four together and tell me it's a coincidence.

Brazil, the US, Japan. Fashion, fast-moving consumer goods, luxury. Across the full market and channel spread, virtual stand-ins are quietly landing everywhere.

This isn't a pilot run — it's a pipeline that's already flowing.

The Strangest Place in Business: They Outwork Humans

It wasn't imagination that first convinced me. It was the math.

How does the math shake out? Four points.

First, low cost. Once an AI influencer has been built, it's nearly zero marginal cost. Drop a request at midnight and the content is delivered by 3 a.m., 365 days a year, never calling in sick. A single post from a top human influencer could fund dozens of AI avatars for a full year.

Second, it's controllable. Humans stay up late, have emotions, slip up — and can suddenly "fall from grace." AI won't. The only boundary on its words and actions is the character profile you wrote. If you say one, it never says two — and it will never post something at 2 a.m. that leaves you kneeling and apologizing.

Third, the results are genuinely not bad. Research shows AI virtual influencers post engagement rates 1.48 percentage points higher than their human peers.

Don't shrug off that 1.48. Because 74% of consumers admit that after seeing an influencer's recommendation on social media, they actually place an order. They don't care whether the creator is a real person or an AI.

A one-point swing in engagement can mean an entire slice of sales. The one whose numbers beat yours may not even have a physical body.

Fourth, marketers are using it themselves. A survey found 66.4% of marketers say putting AI into their marketing workflow actually improved results. And 73% believe AI can already handle most of their influencer-marketing work.

How Do You Actually Use It? Four Moves

Move one: a digital brand ambassador. Give your brand a dedicated virtual character that runs product reviews, unboxing videos, and outfit inspiration. Online 24/7, never dropping the ball. It's always the same face, and it never changes its mind.

Move two: the hype crew for a new launch. The most critical thing before a product launch is the sense of build-up: countdowns, behind-the-scenes stories, a fresh set of teasers every three days. A human team needs at least a month of scheduling for that; an AI influencer can get it all up in three hours.

Move three: one campaign, synchronized worldwide. In cross-channel work, the biggest headache used to be adapting assets for every platform — you'd have to re-cut a version each time. AI influencers don't play that game. One new product: a short clip on TikTok, a long image on Instagram, a notification in email — different platforms, and the assets get regenerated automatically. You put in the effort once.

Move four: globalization by simply switching language. AI influencers come with multilingual ability built in, switching instantly into local culture and local memes. A brand going overseas used to have to negotiate with local real-person creators one by one; now one AI covers dozens of languages, and your global stores all go live at once.

But Let Me Pour Cold Water on This

You're bound to ask: is it really all gain, no cost?

There is a cost. Small ones. Three hurdles.

Hurdle one: a fake person sells "trust." How do you even account for that?

The essence of the influencer business is "recommendations built on genuine trust." But an AI influencer has no real life and no real preferences — even its "likes" were preset.

You may not care, but consumers aren't stupid. A friend once put it this way: when a fake person sells real goods, the worst thing is passing the fake off as real. So the smart brands do the opposite: they're upfront from day one, tagging recommendations with an "AI recommendation" label so people always know who they're talking to. That transparency, in turn, buys longer-lasting trust.

Hurdle two: platform moods change at any moment.

Today, AI influencers mostly live off algorithm recommendations on platforms like Instagram and TikTok. But the followers you worked so hard to amass actually belong to the platforms. When a platform changes the rules, your own audience can be wiped out overnight.

Hurdle three: lots of spectators, very few who actually make it.

There are countless AI influencers with follower counts in the hundreds of thousands and pages that look overwhelming — but look closer at the engagement, and it's cold and empty. Hype is one thing; conversion, people actually paying, is another.

The Future, My Guess, in Four Words: Virtual Meets Real

I'm in no hurry to settle the story from here — I'll just name three directions that are already happening.

First, AI influencers will genuinely merge with AR and VR. One day you'll put on a headset and step into a virtual fitting room, and an AI stylist will stand in front of you — reach out, and it helps you try outfit combinations in real time. A recommendation you can "see and touch" hits far harder than watching a hundred videos.

Second, AI will come to understand your tastes more and more deeply. Today it just writes content from a script. In the future it may truly grasp your preferences and your taboos — even know what suits you better than you know yourself.

Third, human influencers won't be eliminated. The authentic emotional connection between real people is something AI won't learn for a long time. What AI takes over is the repetitive work that can be batch-produced; what's left for humans is precisely the human warmth.

A Last Word, for You

If you happen to be an e-commerce founder reading this, my advice is: don't rush down to find an AI influencer and throw money at it just yet.

First, answer three questions:

How accepting, really, is your target customer of the "virtual" vibe?

Does your brand suit building trust through an "AI persona"?

Can your team actually run this new operational pipeline end to end?

Get those clear, then get on board.

AI influencers aren't a multiple-choice question about whether to dodge them — they're a ticket, and the only question is whether you board early.

Opportunity has always gone to those willing to do the math.

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