– AI-generated influencers are the new stars on the internet
Adaptive computers will soon be generating holiday selfies with all sorts of backgrounds. Is that why the business model of the influencers is in danger?
Published today at 06:00
Yuna is not a person, but a purely virtual influencer. The 22-year-old “lives” in Berlin and is controlled by the company Studio 71, which belongs to the ProSieben group.
Photo: AI-generated image, PD
Turquoise blue mountain lake, white sandy beach or the breathtaking view from the mountain peak: anyone who likes to post holiday photos like this on social media will soon no longer be able to score points. Artificial intelligence (AI) based tools can already generate photos that look like real landscapes.
If you give an AI the right commands, you no longer have to go to the Appenzellerland for selfies from the Seealpsee or from the Aescher Wildkirchli. “Even if you want to post a picture of yourself on the beach at Byron Bay in Australia or of Maya Bay on the Thai island of Ko Phi Phi, you don’t have to travel there, but can generate such a picture relatively easily using AI,” says Moritz Zumbühl, AI -Expert of the agency delicacy.
This means that image falsifications are now much easier and quicker to do than before. This particularly affects the influencers who earn their living from their posts on social media.
Basically, image manipulation on social media is nothing new. Even in the world without AI, there have already been counterfeits. Henrik Kammermann, head of the marketing company Bureau54, remembers a case in which several influencers were commissioned to take and post a photo on the Jungfraujoch in the Bernese Oberland. In fact, an influencer used Photoshop instead of traveling there himself.
Even if AI now makes this possible on an even larger scale and easier, Kammermann does not expect that images produced via AI will destroy the influencer’s business model. However, it is important to transparently let the followers understand that it is an AI image. It is wrong to fool the followers, the influencer would damage his reputation enormously.
Influencers who only exist on the screen
Zumbühl from the Feinheit agency, on the other hand, sees it differently. He says: “In the past, many of us have uploaded a large number of photographs of ourselves to the Internet. From this, new AI tools such as Midjourney or Stable Diffusion can generate a wide variety of images of us that look like they have been photographed.”
Is called: Not just application photos can now be generated by the AI, but also holiday selfies with all sorts of backgrounds. Zumbühl assumes that the business model of the influencers will fall apart, “because the viewers no longer know whether a post is real or was generated with AI”.
Real or not? This is not a photo, but an image generated with artificial intelligence of a holiday island that does not exist in reality.
Photo: AI-generated image, Chase Lean (via Twitter)
Like Kammermann, David Cappellini is more optimistic about this. The founder of the social media agency Monami also points to another important development: Today, numerous influencers no longer really exist as persons, but only purely virtually. They look like real people, talk about their feelings or are even politically active, but only appear on screen. Such virtual influencers are already very common in Asia, as well as in the USA.
The 19-year-old is one of the first and most successful virtual influencers. She has 2.9 million followers on Instagram, works with brands like Prada, Calvin Klein and Samsung, is committed to social issues like Black Lives Matter and even releases her own music. Her voice sounds remarkably real. Lil Miquela created a tech start-up from Los Angeles. The company earns the royalties that its virtual influencers receive.
The founder of the fast food chain KFC was reinvented or “revived” as a virtual influencer just over three years ago. He presents himself as a young, attractive and fashion-conscious bon vivant who entertains his fans with humorous posts and promotes KFC products.
The computer-generated influencer was developed by the company Aww Inc. To ensure the optical illusion is perfect, she regularly shares photos that she shows with real people.
In Switzerland, the virtual weather presenter Jade caused a stir on a western Swiss TV station in April. For over two weeks, viewers had not realized that Jade was a purely virtual avatar.
For the TV broadcaster, using the avatar had the advantage that the presenter could be on site every day, was never sick and could also be in the studio late in the evening or early in the morning, when other flesh-and-blood presenters would rather be at home or still sleep. Jade was only on TV, it would have been easy for those responsible to run a profile on Instagram or Tiktok in her name.
Influencer Yuna in the park or in the museum
David Cappellini also mentions the advantage of the unlimited availability of virtual influencers. For him, it is “only a matter of time” before there will be more AI influencers.
Yuna in particular has been making a name for herself in Germany for a few months. The purely virtual influencer is 22 years old and lives in Berlin. It is controlled by a company that belongs to the ProSieben Group. She posts pictures of herself in the park, at fashion shows or in the museum on Instagram under @iamyunaverse.
Pictured at a fountain: Yuna has been on Instagram since the summer of 2022.
Photo: AI generated image, @iamyunaverse (Instagram)
For the makers, the point is in the entertainment. Virtual influencers like Yuna are a supplement to reality – and a new advertising space, according to an article in the specialist magazine “T3N”. Yuna has a partnership with a company that sells digital clothing.
Experts also see the greatest opportunities for virtual beings in fashion – just as in the entertainment industry and in gaming. They are becoming more and more realistic and interactive due to the current rapid technical development.
Maybe that’s why the operators of Swiss influencer hotspots like the Wildkirchli or the facility at Crestasee can breathe again. In recent years, they have been so overrun by onlookers that some have had to close or limit access.
Virtual guests also have another advantage: they don’t leave behind any waste and they don’t stress the nerves of the catering staff.
Artificial intelligenceEdith Hollenstein is a business editor. She mainly writes about retail/consumption, tech companies and the creative industries. More info
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