Social media influencers have embraced artificial intelligence (AI) to spice up their content, but they are also facing growing competition from AI-generated Instagramers, TikTokers and YouTubers.
Sporting pink hair and posing in lingerie, swimsuits or gym outfits, Aitana Lopez has more than 300,000 followers on Instagram where she is described as a “gamer at heart” and “fitness lover” — except she is not real.
Aitana was created by The Clueless, a Barcelona-based company that describes itself as an “AI modeling agency” run by “visionaries on a mission to redefine the world of influencers.”
Photo: AFP
The Clueless project manager Sofia Novales said “rising costs associated with human influencers” were a reason for the firm’s creation.
“Virtual models, being digital, present a more economical alternative,” Novales said.
Another plus: total control over content.
“The advantages lie in unparalleled creative control, allowing seamless decisionmaking on image, fashion and aesthetics without the need for physical photoshoots,” Novales said.
The rise of AI has fueled concerns about the proliferation of deepfake videos that could be used maliciously.
Meta Platforms Inc, which owns Facebook and Instagram, on Friday said that it would start putting “Made with AI labels” on AI-generated content next month.
AI presents a huge business opportunity for content creators: The influencer market is expected to grow rapidly, from US$16.5 billion in 2022 to nearly US$200 billion by 2032, Allied Market Research has said.
Using virtual influencers is not new — Barbie already has millions of followers on Instagram — but they are now being used in advertisements where they cannot be told apart from a real person.
Take Lil Miquela, a “19-year-old Robot living in LA” created by a California agency in 2016.
With 2.6 million followers on Instagram and 3.5 million on TikTok, Lil Maqueta has promoted brands as big as BMW AG.
The idea was to “create something never seen before,” the German premium automaker said in a statement.
“Attracting a younger, technology-savvy generation is for us the icing on the cake,” it added.
Maud Lejeune, cofounder and CEO of Paris-based digital strategy agency AD Crew, said that it is not difficult for the public to accept AI influencers.
“It’s like actors on TV: We know it isn’t real yet we follow them and we find it interesting, it’s like watching a mini-series,” Lejeune said.
AD Crew represents more than 30 influencers, but Lejeune created her own virtual influencer, Metagaya, two years ago.
“The current level of design didn’t exist then. It’s technical, you’ve got to dress them, take photos for the background, create a story,” said Lejeune, acknowledging that Metagaya did not turn out very well.
The rapid technological progress brought by the likes of OpenAI’s Sora video generator could make it easier to create and operate realistic virtual influencers.
Human influencers are also seizing on AI technology to make better videos. In France, Charles Sterlings sees an opportunity to improve translations.
He uses tools on platforms such as HeyGen and Rask.ai to automatically translate and lip-sync his video posts into English and Spanish.
Sterlings also uses Deepshot, a platform that allows users to create deepfakes by changing the words and mouth movements of people in real videos.
He said it took him just a few minutes and a few dollars to manipulate a video of French President Emmanuel Macron.
Yet Sterlings sees the technology as a competitor as well as a useful tool.
“Anyone with a phone can be an influencer, but eventually, it will be artificial intelligence, available 24 hours a day, and much cheaper to develop,” he said.
For Lejeune, AI can help influencers produce more content.
“It’s tough to put yourself in front of the camera for a long time and certain creators burn out... Maybe AI will provide a new way to create without exposing oneself,” she said.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
RATIONING: The proposal would give the Trump administration ample leverage to negotiate investments in the US as it decides how many chips to give each country US officials are debating a new regulatory framework for exporting artificial intelligence (AI) chips and are considering requiring foreign nations to invest in US AI data centers or security guarantees as a condition for granting exports of 200,000 chips or more, according to a document seen by Reuters. The rules are not yet final and could change. They would be the first attempt to regulate the flow of AI chips to US allies and partners since US President Donald Trump’s administration said it rescinded its predecessor’s so-called AI diffusion rules. Those rules sought to keep a significant amount of AI
Apple Inc increased iPhone production in India by about 53 percent last year and now makes a quarter of its marquee devices there, reflecting the US company’s efforts to avoid tariffs on China. The company assembled about 55 million iPhones in India last year, up from 36 million a year earlier, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named because the numbers aren’t public. Apple makes about 220 million to 230 million iPhones a year globally, with India’s share of the total increasing rapidly. Apple has accelerated its expansion in the world’s most populous country in recent years, bolstered
HEADWINDS: The company said it expects its computer business, as well as consumer electronics and communications segments to see revenue declines due to seasonality Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it aims to grow its artificial intelligence (AI) server revenue more than 10-fold this year from last year, driven by orders from neocloud solutions clients and large cloud service providers. The electronics manufacturing service provider said AI server revenue growth would be driven primarily by the Nvidia Corp GB300 server platform. Server shipments are expected to increase each quarter this year, with the second half likely to outperform the first half, it said. The AI server market is expected to broaden this year as more inference applications emerge, which would drive demand for system-on-chip, application-specific integrated circuits
RSS