The Rise of AI Influencers: Are We Following People Who Don’t Exist?
By Samya Rosario
AI-generated influencers are blurring the line between reality and fiction on social media. The Buccaneer tests whether Barry University students and staff can spot the difference and explores what virtual influencers mean for advertising and consumer trust.
Imagine you’re scrolling through Instagram when someone suddenly stops you mid-scroll. At first glance, there’s nothing unusual about their Instagram profile.
They post morning routines from a luxury condo overlooking the city: perfectly organized meals, workout videos, vacations on white-sand beaches and selfies without a single visible flaw. Their skin is clear, their hair is always perfect and their body looks like it was made for social media.
After scrolling through enough posts, it becomes easy to compare your life to theirs. Why doesn’t your skin look like that? Why isn’t your body as perfect? Why doesn’t your morning routine or lifestyle seem as put together? But there’s something about this picture-perfect life you might not notice at first.
The person you’re comparing yourself to might not even exist. That influencer was created entirely by artificial intelligence and behind that flawless face could simply be someone sitting in a robe with a laptop in their mom’s basement.
Can Barry Students Tell What Is Real?
With AI becoming increasingly realistic, The Buccaneer chose to investigate whether the community at Barry University could recognize the differences.
We showed students and staff two social media videos: one featuring a real influencer and another featuring an AI-generated person. Without telling them, which was which, they were asked to identify the real influencer.
Dellon Evans, a sophomore with a major in political science minor in communications, selected the AI video as real. “First of all, clearly AI has gotten very powerful. Those two videos are hardly discernable. I feel like I’m being fooled,” he said.
The experiment was repeated with Joe Tufte, an instructional media coordinator in the communication department. He selected the human-produced video as real.
“Both videos are really similar but something about the way that the second persons’ hair moved, it seemed like it was artificial,” he said.
The experiment was simple, but their reactions raised a larger question: If people can mistake artificial influencers for real ones, how long will it take to distort consumers’ reality and know whether the lifestyles, products and bodies presented online are authentic?
Fake Influencers, Real Brand Deals
These AI influencers are designed to interact with comments, reply to DM’s and are even receiving paid brand deals. Noonoouri, a music artist, created by German designer Joerg Zuber, has worked with brands including Dior and Valentino and eventually landed a major record deal with Warner Music in 2023 despite her artificial voice. Lil Miquela, a flashy lifestyle influencer, is another example who secured brand deals with Prada, Samsung and Calvin Klein.
It is logical to see why advertisers would go this route. The virtual avatars can be customized around any campaign, digitally placed almost anywhere with fewer costs, while giving brands greater control over their appearance and messaging.
But this creates an ethical contradiction. Influencer marketing traditionally depends on authenticity. An AI influencer cannot smell a perfume, experience how the snack tastes or feel the quality of the clothes it promotes.
The Future of Influence
For Barry students studying advertising, public relations, marketing, communications and business, these questions could soon become part of their careers.
Vicente Berdayes, professor and chairperson of Barry University’s Department of Communication, believes that “AI is creating all kinds of new possibilities.”
He has integrated AI into his classes to help students learn how to use the technology as a tool rather than simply rely on it. According to Berdayes, understanding the right technical vocabulary and knowing how to properly communicate with AI are important for producing the results you actually want.
“Anyone can use AI, but it’s a skill to know how to modify what it gives you and tailor it to your advantage to create something new instead of getting generic results that most people get from asking basic questions,” Berdayes said.
AI influencers create new opportunities and can expand creative marketing without the budget, but they also raise concerns about transparency, beauty standards and consumer trust. As the technology improves, obvious clues like strange fingers, unnatural movements and distorted backgrounds are becoming harder to spot.
The line is already becoming blurry, virtual influencers are landing real campaigns, artificial bodies are being placed alongside human bodies on social media feeds and Barry students are already mixing up what’s real and fake.
So, the next time a perfect-looking stranger appears on your feed, there may be one more question worth asking before liking, following or comparing yourself to them:
Is the person I'm looking at even a person?
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