How Fake AI Influencers Generate Real Cash

"Beauty and fashion influencer Eni Popoola first learned she'd been deepfaked the way many creators do: from her audience. A YouTube ad sent by a follower featured her face and her voice, promoting an online course she had never heard of. "People were sending screenshots saying, 'Hey, there's this video of you, and we obviously know it's not you, because this is not something that you would talk about,'" Popoola said. She's far from alone, as the experience of finding one's AI doppelganger - promoting unknown supplements, self-help content or beauty products - is becoming increasingly commonplace in the creator economy."

"The phenomenon is just part of a wider wave of virtual characters appearing to shill affiliate links from TikTok Shop and Amazon for brands like Cerave or Tarte. "We're at the point now where you can generate something that's essentially undetectable," said Kyle Dulay, founder of influencer marketing platform Collabstr. Most brands remain wary about the prospect of creating content using artificial influencers. A recent Collabstr study of 40,000 advertisers and 100,000 creators on its platform found that 86 percent of respondents did not want to work with virtual influencers, a figure up 30 percent from 2024."

"But the ubiquity of affiliate linking has incentivised enterprising individuals and companies to head to platforms like Sora, Nano Banana or Kling to generate fake influencers. TikTok, Instagram and YouTube have been inundated with people charging for paid "courses" on how to create the most realistic-looking influencers with the right lighting and skin texture, promising thousands of dollars a month in earnings."

Eni Popoola encountered a deepfake using her face and voice in a YouTube ad promoting an unknown online course. Deepfaked creator likenesses are increasingly used to promote supplements, self-help content, and beauty products across social platforms. Virtual characters are appearing to shill affiliate links for established brands, and platforms such as Sora, Nano Banana, and Kling are used to generate fake influencers. Collabstr found 86 percent of advertisers and creators do not want to work with virtual influencers, up 30 percent from 2024. Paid tutorials teach creation of realistic AI influencers and sometimes how to skirt platform disclosure rules.

Read at The Business of Fashion