Photographer: Melissa Cross
Provider: Getty(Credits: Melissa Cross)
Aitana Lopez has 300,000 followers on Instagram, makes up to £8,000 a month from her posts, and has famous actors sliding into her DMs to ask her out.
But what many of those liking and commenting on her pictures don’t realise is that Aitana isn’t you’re average model.
In fact, she’s not even real.
The 25-year-old pink-haired beauty is part of a disturbing new trend of virtual influencers on social media, who are being made using Artificial Intelligence (AI).
It’s a technology that has been advancing over decades, ever since the world’s very first general purpose electronic computer was introduced in the 1940s. And naturally, as computers evolved, so has AI.
However, one notable change has been image recognition software, which was pioneered in the 60s and has now morphed into image generation technology, being used to create online personalities like Aitana – who are indistinguishable from the ‘real thing’.
And it’s incredibly easy to do. To create the images, a physical description is often provided for what the person should look like via sites such as Picsart.com and this can be as basic as stating they should have ‘blue eyes and a hot body’.
Once created, they can then be placed on any background or in any location.
Despite AI influencers still being a relatively new development, their popularity has already exploded in some parts of the world, and are predicted to continue doing so with the global virtual influencer market expected to be valued at a whopping £15 billion by 2028.
‘In South Korea there tends to be at least one AI influencer featured in all the big social media campaigns, and the concept is pretty accepted out there as one of their big cultural values is progression,’ explains Sara McCorquodale, CEO and co-founder of CORQ, an influencer intelligence and trends forecasting service.
Sara tells Metro that although big business elsewhere, they have yet to fully inflitrate UK shores as she believes Brits still value ‘authenticity’ on social media.
However, that’s not to say we aren’t completely immune to them, with virtual models already being used by some of our favourite brands, including Pretty Little Thing and Marks & Spencer.
Following some backlash, PLT claimed their virtual personas wouldn’t replace real women, while M&S haven’t posted on Mira’s account since 2022.
However, the same can’t be said for others dabbling in this technology.
Aitana, who was created by The Clueless modelling agency, was quite literally designed to replace actual influencers the agency had been working with, after they experienced a rough patch with clients.
Rubén Cruz, founder of the Barcelona-based business, declared to euronews.com that their new virtual model allows them to avoid any drama with real-life influencers, who he claims can cause projects to be put on hold or cancelled.
‘We did it so that we could make a better living and not be dependent on other people who have egos, who have manias, or who just want to make a lot of money by posing,’ Cruz told the publication.
But it’s not just the loss of work for real people that’s the issue. Dig a little deeper and there’s something darker bubbling under the surface.
As well as selfies of Aitana’s picture perfect face, her account also features more risque images — with the AI model even having her own page on Fanvue, a platform similar to OnlyFans, where images of her in lingerie can be purchased by subscribers.
She’s not the only one. Aitana has proven so successful for The Clueless that they’ve already created a second AI influencer (a shy, bisexual woman named Maia Lima), and claim more are coming soon.
The agency says that the sexualised images they create is simply good marketing.
‘If we don’t follow this aesthetic, brands won’t be interested. To change this system, you have to change the vision of the brands. The world in general is sexualised,’ the creators told euronews.
Unsurprisingly, this has done little to placate human influencers who are horrified by these accounts, and the men behind them who are profiting off the sexualisation of a female body.
US-based body positive influencer Danae Mercer Ricci, 36, has been vocal about her upset, branding the move ‘creepy’.
‘A lot of these AI influencers now have accounts on sites such as OnlyFans, and when you start to pick that apart, it’s disgusting,’ she tells Metro.co.uk.
‘Take Aitana, for instance, here you have a man profiting off a woman who isn’t even real. It’s the idea of a woman, and he’s deliberately taken her to a hypersexualised place to make even more money. I hate it.’
Danae recalls another AI influencer she came across recently, who looked ‘exceptionally beautiful’ and had very enhanced features. She says that the woman’s face looked very young, ‘around 17 or 18’, but had a ‘very developed’ adult body.
‘She looked so realistic, I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that she wasn’t real,’ Danae admits.
What was really concerning to her, however, was that there was only the subtlest of hints on the profile to suggest it was a virtual account.
‘On my Instagram there’s a tag that says I’m a public figure, but this one just said digital creator,’ she adds. ‘There was no mention of AI whatsoever, so if you didn’t know she was fake, you’d probably never have known and this seems to be pretty common with virtual influencers.
‘I think about the young girls who are seeing this content, and it makes me so angry. I had magazines like Cosmo and Women’s Health to look up to when I was growing up, but Gen Alpha are going to be competing with AI influencers and AI filters. It’s awful.
‘It messes with your mind and if we’re struggling as adults to work out whether something is real or not, what does that mean for teenagers or children? These images already look stunning and this is the worst AI ever going to look. The technology is only going to get exponentially better, which is terrifying.’
Danae, a mum-of-one, is particularly worried for her own daughter, Aurora, who will be growing up in a world where technology like this exists.
‘As humans we’re attracted to what is beautiful, it’s why filters have been so popular,’ she says. ‘If you have these unrealistic simulations, like Aitana, being so successful and getting so much engagement online, it’s going to incentivise more people to create these monsters that are only going to hurt our children.
‘For young girls, it’s also going to encourage more filtering and the desire to adjust their appearance because they’ll want to look more like these unrealistic women. It’s dangerous and unethical.’
Another area for parental concern is that people will often have no idea who they’re talking to when they interact with these kinds of influencers. They might think they’re DMing or commenting on a young woman’s post, when in fact it could be AI generated responses, or even a middle-aged man looking to make some quick cash.
This was something that particularly concerned influencer intelligence expert Sara McCorquodale, who felt action should be taken now to prevent things going south in the future.
One of her biggest concerns around the technology is AI influencers being utilised to unfairly influence the public. She adds that this sort of technology could be used during the upcoming general election, where many people wouldn’t be any the wiser they were being duped.
‘I was speaking with someone recently who has created AI influencers and they mentioned that they try to create a persona that reminds people of someone famous, so that there is something familiar about them,’ Sara explains. ‘The combination of this and content which inspires strong emotions could be utilised as a very powerful tool in a heightened climate and perhaps make people feel like they have an instant connection and common ground with the AI influencer, without necessarily realising it is AI.’
Her other big fear was the lack of protection people have, as we currently have no way of stopping our own likeness from being used by companies to create AI influencers.
‘I think we have an opportunity right now to legislate to protect people from AI influencers who may appear to be real, but have been created by someone with an agenda,’ adds Sara.
‘This is why it’s so important to know whether or not an account is real, because we need to understand what we’re engaging with.’
So what’s currently being done to regulate AI influencers and protect people online?
The simple answer is not a lot.
The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) told Metro that they class virtual personas that are active on social media as ‘influencers’ in the same way as humans. As such, a virtual influencer must comply with their rules, and any brands working with them would need to do the same.
These rules state that an influencer must clearly label posts as adverts when they’ve been paid for, however there’s no rule that says they must label their posts as AI generated.
A spokesperson for ASA said: ‘Influencer advertising remains one of our key priorities, and we’re keenly aware of the rise of virtual influencers within this space.
‘Whether real or AI-generated, influencers must follow our rules. Their ads must be honest and responsible, especially if most of their followers are young people. Broadly, no social media account where 25% or more of the followers are under-18s should be marketing gambling, alcohol or other products that can only be purchased by an adult.
‘Ads must be carefully targeted so that children are not being exposed to sexualised or distressing imagery. We won’t hesitate to sanction ads that break our rules, especially when it comes to protecting young people.’
The ASA add that they haven’t yet had to ban an advert from a virtual influencer on the grounds of a digital model exaggerating the efficacy of a product.
However, if you ask Danae, any brand that is advertising with an AI influencer is already guilty of doing this.
‘‘These people aren’t real!’ she says. ‘How is anyone supposed to trust your products if you have pretend people marketing them?’
Metro.co.uk has contacted Meta for comment.
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