Sourced from The Drum

A massive disconnect exists between media spends and media consumption. The disconnect between ad spend and consumption reality has multiple causes:

1. Outdated media mix models offered by major consulting houses weight older media forms like broadcast and cable more than new forms of media or ignore them completely.

2. Media fragmentation has muddied the marketplace with hundreds of new channels.

By Davide Demarchi for CreatorDB

If you are working in influencer marketing, you must have heard of the new buzzword: AI influencers.

AI influencers, also known as virtual influencers, are quickly becoming one of the most talked-about trends in the influencer marketing world. These digital personalities, often powered by AI and CGI, can look and behave like real people. Some are animated or stylized, while others are nearly indistinguishable from humans.

While AI influencers won’t replace human creators, they are changing the game, offering new opportunities for creative campaigns, brand storytelling, and customer interaction. Understanding how to work with these digital personas is key for marketers who want to stay ahead of the curve.

In this article, CreatorDB explores the evolution of AI influencers, why they’re gaining popularity, how leading brands are using them, and what this trend means for the future of influencer marketing.

What Are AI Influencers?

AI influencers are digital personas created using AI tools and CGI. They behave like human influencers, posting content, engaging with followers, and partnering with brands, but they are not real people. Some are managed by agencies, while others are entirely autonomous with AI-generated visuals and personalities.

According to The Conversation, there are three main types of AI influencers:

• Non-Humans – Characters that are clearly fictional (e.g., mascots).
• Animated Humans – Stylized or cartoon-like personas.
• Hyper-Realistic CGI Humans – Nearly indistinguishable from real people.

Some of the most well-known examples include:

• LilMiquela – Fashion and music influencer with over 2.7 million followers.
• Imma – A Japanese virtual model with a highly engaged following.
• Kuki – An interactive chatbot with a social media presence.

A Brief History of Virtual Influencers

The concept of AI influencers first came out in the early 2010s.

Back then, the early versions of AI influencers were simply virtual characters in the gaming and entertainment industry.

As AI and computer graphics developed, these characters started to have more nuances and became more sophisticated, eventually becoming the virtual influencers we see today.

In 2016, the world welcomed Lil Miquela, who is considered the first official hyper realistic AI influencer in history. After her release, there were a ton of debates about whether she was a real person or not.

Since then, the virtual influencer industry has exploded:

• CB from Casa Bahia – A Brazilian virtual mascot with over 10M followers.
• Milla Sofia – An AI-generated influencer using diffusion models.
• Brand-created influencers – From Lu of Magalu to Noonoouri, companies are building and managing their own digital ambassadors.

Why Are Brands Turning to AI Influencers?

Though still niche, AI influencers appeal to brands for several compelling reasons:

1. Total control over content, messaging, and brand representation
2. No scandals or PR risks, unlike human influencers
3. Always available for campaigns and engagement
4. Cost-effective over time
5. High novelty value, boosting brand buzz and attention

Besides those reasons, according to Influencer Marketing Hub data, AI influencers are collecting excellent feedback from the marketers who worked with them and inspiring more collaborations:

• 59.8% of marketing professionals have worked with AI influencers
• 15.5% plan to collaborate with AI influencers
• Over 60% of those who once collaborated with virtual influencers are satisfied.

Since AI influencers don’t exist as people outside of their social media feeds, a team of professionals manages them, making it easier to align them with the specifics of a marketing campaign.

Case Studies: How Brands Are Using AI Influencers

Although there is still no data about how effective AI influencers are compared to traditional influencers, it is clear that the fit with the product is still the most critical factor for a successful influencer marketing campaign.

Audiences might be happy to see the innovation of AI influencers, but they may find human influencers more relatable regarding certain products.

Still, AI influencers are great if brands want to showcase an innovative image and position themselves at the forefront of a trend.

CreatorDB found three case studies in different industries to help you better understand how to work with AI influencers.

1. Hugo Boss Rebranding: Rebranding With Imma and Nobody Sausage

In the spring of 2022, the German fashion brand Hugo Boss underwent a major rebranding effort to reach the younger generations. First of all, it was the campaign, which included many traditional fashion influencers such as Kendall Jenner and Hailey Bieber.

In addition, they partnered with Nobody Sausage and Imma, two of the most well known AI influencers in this field.

Integrating virtual influencers in the rebranding was a powerful signal that Hugo Boss’s future will focus on technology and innovation.

2. Samsung x Miquela: A Digital-First Dream

Miquela Sousa, created by Brud, partnered with Samsung as part of its #TeamGalaxy campaign. The collaboration highlighted the futuristic appeal of both the Galaxy smartphone and its ambassador. The campaign effectively reached tech-savvy digital natives and reinforced Samsung’s innovation narrative.

3. Dior x Noonoouri: A Virtual Icon for a Classic Brand

In 2018, luxury meets digital with Noonoouri’s campaign for Dior’s “Rouge” perfume. In a side-by-side recreation of Natalie Portman’s classic ad, Noonoouri added novelty and visual intrigue. This AI-led approach helped Dior appeal to both fashion lovers and early adopters of virtual media.

4. Magalu’s Lu: A Virtual Face of Retail

Lu of Magalu is not just a virtual influencer. She is the face of the leading Brazilian retail chain Magalu. Her profile blends memes, reels, relatable content, promotions, and branded content. By developing its influencer, Magalu can provide a more interesting face to its promotion and resonate better with the clients.

5. Coach x Imma: Storytelling That Blends Real & Virtual

Coach’s 2024 “Find Your Courage” campaign merged CGI and real personalities. Imma’s story—her journey to become human—ran alongside stars like Lil Nas X and Camila Mendes, showcasing how virtual influencers can amplify emotion-driven narratives through immersive storytelling.

What’s Next: The Future of AI Influencers

With tools like Midjourney, ChatGPT, and Runway advancing rapidly, brands and creators alike are experimenting with AI-powered personas that can communicate, adapt, and even develop unique personalities over time. Whether for cost-efficiency, creative flexibility, or 24/7 availability, AI influencers are unlocking new ways to build audience engagement and brand value.

AI Influencers for Brands

Many established AI influencers are created by marketing agencies at high costs. However, with the rise of ChatGPT, specialized LLMs, and GAN models, brands can now easily generate AI influencers tailored to their image and goals.

Tools like SynthLife enable the creation of realistic characters with branded elements, extending beyond images to AI-generated videos. Combined with AI-powered chatbots, these influencers offer 24/7 personalized social media engagement, acting as powerful brand advocates.

Why AI Influencers Work for Brands

Customers seek intimate, personalized interactions with brands, not just one-way messaging. Brands can meet this demand by expanding costly support teams or deploying AI influencers and chatbots that deliver personalized attention efficiently.

Effective AI influencers boost customer engagement, increasing social media following, visibility, and conversions by providing constant support and interaction.

The Future of AI and Branding

As AI influencer creation becomes simpler and largely self-sustaining, many brands will integrate AI characters into their core marketing strategies. These influencers offer a humanized yet curated brand presence, fulfilling consumers’ desire for thoughtful, authentic interaction.

Legacy brand characters brought to life as AI influencers will also capture significant attention, opening a new dynamic channel for brand storytelling and engagement.

AI influencers will significantly impact content creators—not by replacing them, but by enabling virtual clones that offer fans a more intimate, personalized experience.

For example, Caryn Marjorie pioneered this with Caryn AI, created in partnership with Forever Voices AI. Her AI clone, trained on hundreds of thousands of interactions, allows fans to chat directly with a virtual version of her. This innovation earned $72,000 in its first week and is projected to generate $5 million monthly as her following grows.

The Future of AI for Content Creators

Like brands, content creators will increasingly use AI tools and clones to deepen audience connections. Creators’ unique personalities, which build strong parasocial bonds, can be replicated by AI for personalized one-to-one interactions, boosting monetization and engagement.

Creators known for niche expertise can also train AI on their vast content libraries, offering fans faster, more intuitive access to their knowledge.

Overall, AI will drive a surge of innovative applications among content creators, transforming how they connect with and serve their audiences.

Final Thoughts

AI influencers are not just a passing trend, they’re the next evolution of digital branding and content strategy. For both brands and creators, the ability to scale engagement, personalize experiences, and control messaging offers significant long-term value.

As technology matures, expect AI influencers to become more intelligent, expressive, and seamlessly integrated into the digital experience.

FAQs about Virtual Influencers

1. How do AI influencers maintain engagement and authenticity in interactions with their followers, given their non-human nature?

AI influencers engage followers through programmed responses and content that resonates with audience interests, though this might lack the depth of human interaction.

2. What ethical considerations might arise in using AI influencers, especially concerning transparency and disclosure to audiences?

Ethical concerns include the need for transparency about their AI nature to avoid misleading audiences.

3. How is the content creation process involving AI influencers managed, and who is responsible?

The creative process involves teams of designers and AI specialists who develop the influencer’s persona and content, ensuring alignment with brand and audience expectations.

This story was produced by CreatorDB and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.

Feature image credit: AFP via Getty Images

By Davide Demarchi for CreatorDB

Sourced from AOL

By Kristian Monroe

It’s an unexpected place to spot a recession indicator — from videos reviewing the latest in skin care to picturesque posts of summer vacations — but the impact of turbulent financial markets and seesawing tariff policies threatens to upend the multibillion-dollar influencer industry for millions of online creators.

Recession jitters have made online audiences and brands more discerning about their spending, possibly roiling the traditional income streams that influencers have come to rely on.

“It really does beg the question of what do creators do if the economy isn’t there to support them?” Sam Ogborn asks. Ogborn is a content creator and marketing strategist who has worked with brands like Red Bull and Walgreens. “If they’re so reliant on fans to buy from them and support them, what happens when that starts to go away?”

Recession fears grow as consumers’ confidence declines

Posts sharing luxury handbag collections or exotic vacations were once popular on TikTok and Instagram, but now influencers are facing backlash in their comment sections for what some followers see as excessive displays of wealth during an economic downturn.

It comes as a majority of Americans say they feel “stressed” or “concerned” about their finances, according to a CBS News/YouGov poll. Over half (54%) said they feel the economy is doing poorly. And it has impacted what audiences want to watch online.

Peyton Knight, a marketing executive at Ladder and founder of Last Digital, which assists companies in managing their social media presence, says the financial anxiety has contributed to a decline in trust between followers and content creators. She says, “The consumer is what really dictates what’s happening in the market. And I think the consumer has pushed back and said, ‘Enough.'”

Hauls and headwinds

Despite influencers’ ability to harness their followers’ buying power to promote a business or sell out a product with a single post, as recession fears grow, consumers’ confidence in their spending power declines, causing brands to recalibrate.

This year, nearly 76% of brands are dedicating advertising funds to online creators. That’s a 10% decrease since 2024, according to Influencer Marketing Hub. Only 12% of those brands said they plan to allocate more than half their budgets to influencer marketing, a 12 percentage-point decline since last year.

Knight explains, “Where brands may have used 20-plus creators on a particular campaign, now on average [they are] using single digits for their influencer campaigns, just depending on the scale.”

The influencer bubble

Nearly 12 million people in the U.S. consider themselves full-time influencers, according to one study, earning an average of $178,000 a year, a number boosted by the earnings of mega-influencers like Addison Rae and MrBeast. However, economic stressors and increased scrutiny from online audiences could cause the industry — and incomes — to shrink.

Knight believes that the inability of some influencers to innovate as monetary support from brands dries up will cause the decline of what she calls the “one-hit wonders”: “Some people just have their moment and then they go away. They try, but they don’t become the next Doechii.”

But the influencers who have staying power will survive, she says. “These people actually create the content I want to consume, that is, in some way, shape or form, is bettering my life or making me interested in a topic.”

Weathering the storm

Ogborn encourages influencers to take an unconventional approach to weathering the storm by looking at how brands reacted during the 2008 recession. “If I were a smart creator, that’s what I would be doing right now — is studying what that looked like and starting to understand how behaviours shifted, instead of scrambling to figure out what to do next. Because creators at the end of the day are brands,” Ogborn says.

For some influencers, it may mean pivoting their content away from shopping hauls and more toward embracing underconsumption. Ogborn says as consumers want to buy less and save more, “it makes sense that a lot of people now watch that kind of content and find ways to be scrappy in their own lives, because they don’t want to just buy a new item anymore and pay the cost of the tariff.”

“The only constant is change”

For many influencers who grew up during the 2008 Great Recession, financial turbulence is nothing new. They remember the housing crisis, banks failing and the feeling of economic unpredictability. Yet content creators Kira Abboud and Caralyn Mirand Koch, who remember that time well, remain hopeful about the future of their industry despite the feelings of instability.

Mirand Koch, a lifestyle and fashion creator who has over 400,000 followers on Instagram, says she tries not to operate from fear, but instead remains adaptable, “whether that means shifting partnerships, or fine-tuning my content mix, or just leaning deeper into what my audience is asking for. Whether it’s more lighthearted humor or more lifestyle content and not just necessarily so focused on selling.”

Diversifying, Mirand Koch says, has been key to her success: knowing that social media platforms can come and go, but that “you still want to have your roots and your core of who you are and where your community can find you.” For her, it has meant growing her audiences on other platforms like TikTok and Pinterest, as well as promoting her website.

Abboud, a fashion and styling creator who has over 600,000 followers on Instagram and over 200,000 on TikTok, also encourages creators to look inward and work to better understand where their followers are emotionally and financially during this uncertainty. She says it’s important for her community to feel secure, whether it’s by offering clothing at lower price points or promoting more local brands: “I need to think about what my consumer is doing, so I can give them what they need so they do feel as though their buying power is with me.”

While there is uncertainty of what the future will look like for creators and their followers, for Mirand Koch one thing is clear: “The only constant is change, and you just have to constantly be open-minded and adapt to what’s happening — which is a scary place to be comfortable with.”

By Kristian Monroe

Sourced from gpb

By Lester Mapp

What’s making your favourite social videos go viral? The answer might surprise you.

Feature image credit: Wanwalder/Getty Images

By Lester Mapp

Sourced from ZD Net

By Solomon Thimothy 

There is power in community, and brands are learning how to harness it through their audiences’ voices

Celebrity endorsements and influencer marketing have long been staples of brand strategy. But in today’s digital landscape, authenticity and relatability are becoming far more valuable than fame. Consumers are tuning out polished ads and turning their attention to brands that reflect real stories — told by people who look and live like them.

That shift is changing how smart businesses build trust, market products and grow communities — and it’s opening the door to a more cost-effective, scalable and human-centred approach to influence.

The rise of real people in brand storytelling

There are far more everyday people in the world than celebrities, and those everyday people are now driving the next evolution of marketing. As advertising saturation increases, audiences crave authenticity. In fact, 86% of Americans say transparency from businesses is more important than ever.

That’s why more brands are moving away from curated influencer content and toward community-led marketing. They’re spotlighting real customers, user-generated content (UGC) and grassroots brand advocates to tell stories that resonate more deeply than high-gloss ads ever could.

Why “smaller” influencers are driving bigger engagement

Enter the nano-influencer: a social media user with fewer than 5,000 followers — but often with the highest engagement rates of any tier. At 2.53% engagement, nano-influencers outperform mega-influencers by nearly triple (0.92%).

Brands are taking note. They’re shifting focus from high-budget campaigns to everyday content — reposts of customers’ testimonials, product use cases and genuine moments. It’s cheaper, more effective and fosters a more organic sense of trust.

Take Bumble, for example. Instead of flashy ads, the dating and networking app launched #FindThemOnBumble, a docuseries, outdoor, and experiential campaign that featured 112 New York City Bumblers and their real stories. The campaign achieved 15 million media impressions and reached 5.5 million people on Twitter alone. These relatable narratives showcase how the product fits into real lives, creating emotional buy-in without the hard sell.

How community is replacing the traditional “audience”

The old model of building a brand following — likes, comments, shares — is no longer enough. Today’s most successful businesses are fostering communities, not just collecting followers.

This means investing in more personal, participatory spaces: private social groups, live-stream events and digital forums where customers can connect, contribute and co-create. These environments build loyalty, offer valuable feedback loops and make customers feel like part of the brand journey.

Consider Lululemon. The brand doesn’t just sell apparel — it builds experiences. From local running clubs to wellness events, Lululemon creates space for its community to gather, then benefits from the authentic content they generate by simply showing up. The results speak for themselves, with a nearly 65% year-over-year growth rate of its Essential Membership program in North America, which is now home to 28 million members.

The marketing advantage you already have

You don’t need a Kardashian-sized budget to create meaningful brand buzz. What you do need is a way to make your customers feel seen—and a strategy to invite them to share their experiences. Proactive ways to build a strong brand community include:

Understanding what brand community success looks like

Ask yourself: Is creating a thriving brand community about engagement rates? Member numbers? Or is it the amount of user-generated content your brand community produces? Setting specific goals for your brand community is a key first step to shaping how it looks in the future.

Knowing your brand community

Find out where customers who fit your brand persona spend their time and what they discuss in those spaces. This will help inform how you target your community members and convince them that your brand community is worth investing their time in.

Using the right platform

Where is your brand community most likely to hang out? Depending on your target market, choose a place to host your brand community, whether it’s in an exclusive social media group, a brand app, or even a custom forum, where they can connect with like-minded people and access the benefits that come with being a part of the community.

Providing incentives

What do your customers want from you that they can’t get elsewhere? A practical way to gain interest is to give people a reason to join your brand community by understanding their needs and providing them with benefits that meet them.

When real people tell real stories about how your business added value to their lives, the impact can be just as powerful as celebrity-backed ads — if not more so. It builds credibility, fosters emotional connection, and turns your customers into your most trusted marketers.

In a noisy digital world, the quiet power of authenticity stands out. Community-led marketing isn’t just a trend — it’s a long-term strategy. Businesses that centre real people, encourage organic advocacy, and create space for honest stories will outlast those still chasing the influencer spotlight.

By Solomon Thimothy 

Business Growth Consultant at Clickx

Solomon Thimothy, the driving force behind a thriving digital marketing agency, weaves innovation into his entrepreneurial journey. Solomon thrives in the dynamic intersection of business and technology, driving impactful results.

Sourced from Entrepreneur

By Vidhi Choudhary

Bryan Moore said the platform has seen an over 75% uptick in inbound partnerships from brands and retailers.

Live shopping platform TalkShopLive is taking off in the US, and TikTok Shop might have a hand in that growth.

TikTok, which has been credited with making live shopping work in the US, was officially banned by Congress in January unless its China-based owners found a US buyer, but the platform continues to operate under extensions from the Trump administration.

TalkShopLive, the technology that powers live shopping for Walmart, has seen momentum build for its livestreams and short-form content, as TikTok future in the US remains uncertain. From Q1 2024 to Q1 2025, the livestream social-commerce platform says it saw a 59.5% jump in syndications of its embeddable video player, 40% longer livestreams, and stronger viewer engagement with 27.6% higher post-live watch time and 8.6% more live viewing time.

Founded in 2018, TalkShopLive gained prominence by striking strategic deals with platforms with Billboard and NBCUniversal and showcasing celebrities in the live commerce space with the likes of Matthew McConaughey, Alicia Keys and Dolly Parton. In January, it launched a shoppable short-form format called TSL Shoppettes, the platform’s latest integration with Meta to make Facebook and Instagram more shoppable.

TalkShopLive’s business operates on two fronts: the TalkShopLive Marketplace, where users can watch celebrities sell products, and its enterprise division, which partners with major retailers like Walmart. In a chat with Retail Brew, TalkShopLive CEO Bryan Moore said his business is evenly split between these two divisions, “but our enterprise division really just started growing much later and is scaling so rapidly.”

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

How has uncertainty linked to TikTok Shop impacted your business?

Since all of the news around TikTok, we have seen an over 75% uptick in inbound from brands and retailers seeking to do diversified programs with Talkshoplive. We’re also shoppable on Instagram. We’re shoppable on Facebook. So the opportunity to go live and then distribute your product to multiple different platforms taking off the dependency of one.

The thing that’s so great about TikTok Shop is it drove a big adoption of the medium. But the thing is, now retailers and brands are continuing to look for—what is that solution? When you rely on a single social platform, that’s a tactic. But what brands and retailers need to develop is a video commerce strategy and that strategy is distributed not reliant on one platform.

Did this shift in thinking happen after TikTok’s ban in January?

What it did was it made it very top of mind for all of the holding companies and all of the retailers and all of the brands that said, if our video commerce strategy is actually only a tactic of one platform, we can’t have so much of our business dependent on that one platform. How do we distribute the content so that we can have an overall strategy that drives success for video commerce, regardless of what happens to one platform?

Going back to that 75% stat of inbounds from brands that once relied heavily on TikTok, what is their headspace like?

Despite what’s happening with TikTok, they are still all looking for driving full-funnel results.

What’s one key learning from all of this?

What we realized really early on is the solution that retailers are searching for, creators are searching for, is how not to be dependent on one single social platform for their video commerce, but how to drive distribution of that content and make it shoppable everywhere it is.

What’s the live shopping landscape in the US like?

Consumers are adopting live shopping and video commerce overall. Our Talkshoplive Marketplace, for instance, we’re up over 100% in sales Q1 last year versus Q1 this year.

Was that a small base?

No. And it’s continuing to grow, and I think that it’s from the retail partners. But also, we’re seeing a big demand from creators and brand collaborations.

Can you expand on demand from creators and brand collaborations?

A lot of people are coming to Talkshoplive to launch their products.

What’s selling?

On our marketplace, our gateway categories were books and music. We started impacting the New York Times bestseller list. The top artists sometimes move up to 50% of our first week sales in products. But as we’ve grown to expand with our retail partners, we’re also seeing food, home, beauty all significantly picking up.

Feature image credit: TalkShopLive

By Vidhi Choudhary

Sourced from Retail Brew