According toUnited KingdomThe Financial Times reports that AI influencers could steal jobs from human influencers.
Virtual influencers who look like real people sign six-figure contracts with luxury brands.
One of the companies behind the AI influencer says it's to cut marketing costs.
According to the Financial Times, Noonououri, an artificial intelligence influencer with more than 400,000 followers on Instagram, has also worked with Kim Kardashian's cosmetics brand KKW Beauty.
All these virtual influencers (and the companies behind them) may snatch paid gigs from real people. This puts pressure on those who make a living by marketing their products to social ** fans.
One of the main reasons why brands make deals with virtual influencers is to try to reduce costs and increase visibility.
We've been taken aback by the skyrocketing fees charged by influencers," Diana, co-founder of The Clueless, an artificial intelligence modeling agency, told the Financial Times. She said that the fact that human influencers charge so much inspired her company to create its own influencers.
It also looks striking. According to the Financial Times, Instagram analyzed an ad by Kuki, an AI influencer working with H&M, and found that the ad had 11 times the click-through rate on social platforms compared to traditional ads. This means that the cost per person to remember the ad is 91% lower.
In response to this trend, some (human) influencers have expressed concern that their AI competitors will be mistaken for real people because they are strikingly similar.
Danay Mercer, a creator with more than 2 million followers on Instagram, told the Financial Times: "What scares me most about these influencers is that it's hard to tell if they're fake. ”
Despite the potential for AI to reduce marketing costs, the companies behind AI influencers also seem to grapple with the ethical issues surrounding their creation.
We inadvertently created a monster. It's beautiful, though," The clueless' Nú EZ told the Financial Times. The co-founder of the AI modeling agency did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.
The potential tension between humans and AI influencers is another example of ongoing concern that AI will replace workers as technological capabilities become more advanced.
A study released by Goldman Sachs earlier this year found that generative AI could be found in more than 300 million white-collar jobs worldwide. Workers use AI tools like OpenAI's ChatGPT to write, create real estate listings, and generate marketing copy.
Despite fears that jobs will be replaced, the reality is that influencers are using this technology to help streamline their daily content creation. In a May report, influencer marketing factories surveyed 660 peopleUnited StatesCreators, discover 94 of them5% use AI to edit content and generate images.