Virtual Influencers: What Are They and How Successful Are They?

Artificial intelligence is increasingly permeating all areas of human activity. In some areas, AI serves as a reliable assistant, helping to generate code, edit texts, and create images. In others, it replaces humans: artificially generated models appear on magazine covers, run Instagram accounts, and sell goods on TV shopping channels. In this article, we will look at some interesting examples of the successful application of AI in such unusual areas.

Magazines

In 2025, the August issue of American Vogue magazine featured an advertisement for the Guess clothing brand with a model created using artificial intelligence.

Seraphinne Vallora, the company that created the model, was established by Valentina Gonzalez and Andreea Petrescu. According to their interview with the BBC, Paul Marciano (co-founder of Guess) contacted them via Instagram with a request to develop an AI model for the brand's summer advertising campaign.

"We created 10 draft models for him and he selected one brunette woman and one blonde that we went ahead and developed further," Gonzalez says.

Some users were outraged that these perfect, computer-generated models promote unnatural beauty standards that are unattainable for ordinary girls.

Other users responded by asking whether real, living models don't do the same thing. Especially considering that tons of filters and Photoshop editing hide all the flaws anyway.

But in any case, this model from Vogue magazine can't really be called a virtual influencer, since she doesn't even have a name. It's a different story with Samantha Everly, an artificially created model who appeared on the cover of the Mexican edition of Playboy.

In addition to photos, the magazine published an interview with Samantha, where she talked about herself and her fans. And she really does have a lot of fans – currently, more than 250,000 people follow her Instagram account!

What are virtual influencers?

Virtual influencers are computer-generated characters with their own personalities and social media accounts. They look like people, cartoons, or anime characters. Unlike real influencers, brands have complete control over what these digital personalities say and do, making them perfect for reaching young audiences who love online entertainment.

Ten years ago, there were only nine virtual influencers, but today there are hundreds of them on various platforms: Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, etc. In particular, Instagram has already verified several dozen virtual influencers.

Virtual influencers verified by Instagram

Here are some of them:

Interesting fact: Superplastic, a company that had been making toys for over 20 years, decided to stop making them because creating virtual content is more profitable! On their website, the company's founder explained in simple terms that in the current economic situation, creating a single figurine – from concept to delivery to your doorstep – takes about 2 years and costs the end consumer roughly $300. So naturally, it's much more profitable for the company to monetize their characters' popularity online.

One of the advantages of virtual influencers is their ability to work across any type of media. A human can run a blog or appear in a TV commercial, but they can't be a 24/7 assistant in an online store, while Lu do Magalu can. The rabbit Guggimon participated in an NFT collaboration with Gucci and became a playable character in the popular video game Fortnite.

Virtual celebrities give their brands stability and security. People aren't perfect and can make mistakes. In 2001, Britney Spears nearly lost her $108 million deal with Pepsi when she was caught by paparazzi drinking a Coke. This would never happen with a virtual influencer.

According to a HypeAuditor report, virtual influencers attract younger audiences: people aged 13 to 17 make up 14.64% of virtual influencers' audience. This is twice as high as regular influencers (7%). In addition, virtual celebrities have engagement rates almost three times higher than the engagement rates of real influencers.

Sales

In China, virtual sellers appeared on marketplaces in 2022 and are now consistently outselling their human counterparts.

Virtual salespersons on 4 different e-commerce platforms

Chinese AI streamers operate on the basis of Baidu and DeepSeek. AI streamers enable companies to broadcast 24/7, making them the most powerful sales channel in the country. Human sellers perform well in the first few hours (even better than AI), but soon become tired, less friendly, and less engaged, resulting in a drop in their performance.

According to Wired, in 2024, more than a third of all online sales in China came from live streams — every second person made purchases during live broadcasts. On some platforms, sales increased by 30% after switching to virtual sellers.

A related field is OnlyFans, where they sell conversation. Yes, as it turns out, many men don't go there for explicit content, but to chat with girls they like. According to OnlyGuider data, 69% of revenue comes from private messages and only 8% from subscriptions.

Percentage of revenue, from left to right: messages, tips, subscriptions, resubscriptions, posts, streams

However, communication also needs to be monetized effectively. Many women working on the OnlyFans platform hire specialists to manage chat conversations. A month's work by such a specialist can cost $900. A chatbot is much cheaper. Specifically, the startup SuperCreator offers a bot that will write 2,000 messages for $99 per month. According to the startup's founder, this bot is already being used by over 25,000 women.

How to create a virtual influencer?

You can start by generating an image, then add animation and sound. Midjourney and DALL-E were used to create 9 models that were published in Singapore's Vogue magazine in 2023.

Vogue Singapore, 28 February 2023

The DALL-E image generator is available on our website. You can then upload the generated image to a specialized service, such as apob.ai. This service allows you to create virtual influencers based on real photos, generated images, or generate them from scratch.

Here's an example of generation from scratch:

Then click the "Select this image as reference image" button and use the resulting character in any scenarios: animations or videos.

The credits you receive when registering with the service are only enough to animate images. You'll need to pay extra for videos.

These services can be combined with each other. For example, you can generate an image in DALL-E or apob.ai, animate it in Kling, and add high-quality voiceover in ElevenLabs. There's also a universal service that can do all of the above – openart.ai.

The future of virtual influencers

Of course, simply creating an interesting character is not enough. As mentioned earlier in the article, 10 years ago there were only a handful of such characters, but now there are hundreds. Competition is growing and the novelty effect is wearing off.

According to HypeAuditor data, in 2019 only 30% of virtual influencers showed declining follower counts, but in 2020 this share grew to 48%, and in 2021-2022 it reached 57%. Even the hugely popular Miquela (@lilmiquela) has lost 700,000 Instagram followers over the past 3 years.

In some areas – like online sales, for instance – virtual assistants will likely completely replace humans over time. As for more creative fields – such as the entertainment industry – the success of a virtual influencer depends on how well-developed their personality is and how interesting their life story becomes. In this regard, AI-generated celebrities are no different from movie or book characters. It's just that now these characters have moved online.