Virtual Influencers in 2025: How AI-Generated Creators Are Changing Social Media Marketing
The social media world isn’t just for real people anymore. In 2025, we’re seeing a wave of virtual influencers, AI-powered characters with growing fan bases, brand deals, and full content calendars. These digital personalities are showing up across platforms, promoting products, and shaping online culture without ever picking up a phone.
So what exactly are virtual influencers, how do they work, and what should brands know before jumping on the trend? Let’s explore the landscape.
What Are Virtual Influencers?
Virtual influencers are computer-generated characters made with a mix of artificial intelligence, 3D design, and animation tools. Most aren’t based on real people. Instead, they’re built from scratch with unique styles, voices, and stories designed to speak to a certain audience.
You’ll find them on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, posting photos, short videos, and stories like any other content creator. And just like real influencers, they often work with brands through paid collaborations, sponsored posts, and product shoutouts.
There are two main types:
- Fully AI-Generated Influencers: These are completely fictional characters with no ties to any real person. Think Lil Miquela or Shudu.
- AI Avatars of Real People: These are digital versions of actual influencers or celebrities used to expand their brand, try new styles, or simply post more consistently.
How Do Virtual Influencers Work?
They might look like they’re running their own accounts, but behind the scenes, a team of people and tools keep everything moving.
- Natural Language Processing (NLP) helps them write captions, reply to comments, and sound natural.
- Computer Vision adds realistic facial expressions and movements.
- Generative AI powers visuals, scripts, and other creative content.
A team, usually made up of designers, writers, and marketers, handles the content strategy and keeps everything on-brand. High-quality visuals are created with AI software that lets these characters wear styled outfits, appear in different settings, and interact with the world in believable ways.
This setup allows for regular posting, fast trend response, and non-stop availability.
Why Brands Are Turning to Virtual Influencers
Virtual influencers offer a different kind of flexibility and control that can be hard to get with traditional partnerships.
- Fewer Production Costs: No travel, no reshoots, no scheduling conflicts
- Creative Freedom: Brands can shape the influencer’s personality, style, and messaging
- Consistent Activity: These characters can post any time, day or night
- Audience Targeting: You can build an influencer that speaks directly to your niche
- Quick Feedback: AI tools help track how posts perform and adjust content as needed
- Repeatable Content: Once the character is built, you can reuse them in different formats and across multiple campaigns
Challenges and Considerations
Despite the benefits, virtual influencers are not without their drawbacks. Brands should weigh these factors carefully:
- Realness and Connection: It’s harder for audiences to connect emotionally with something that isn’t real
- Ethics and Clarity: If it’s not obvious the influencer is virtual, it could feel misleading
- Audience Reaction: Some folks love them, others find the idea strange or off-putting
- No Surprise Factor: Virtual influencers often feel planned and polished. That spontaneity from human creators can be missing
Build Your Own Virtual Influencer or Partner with an Existing One?
If you’re thinking about trying virtual influencers, you’ve got two options: work with one that’s already out there or build your own from the ground up.
Collaborating with Existing Virtual Influencers
This approach is similar to traditional influencer marketing. Brands team up with well-known virtual personas who already have followers and online presence.
Advantages:
- They already have an audience that’s used to engaging with their content
- You can move quickly and test ideas without a big setup
- Their engagement stats give you a starting point for your strategy
- More affordable than building your own from scratch
Considerations:
- Limited creative control over their look, tone, or content
- They might be promoting other brands at the same time, which can dilute your message
- Their audience might not fully overlap with yours
Building Your Own AI Influencer
Some brands are creating their own virtual content creators. These influencers are designed to reflect your brand’s personality, voice, and goals from the start.
Advantages:
- Total control over the character’s backstory, appearance, and content
- Everything stays aligned with your brand’s vibe and values
- The character becomes a long-term digital asset
- You can use them across channels, formats, and campaigns without asking for approval
Considerations:
- It takes time and money to build and launch
- You’ll need a team (or partners) to handle strategy, visuals, writing, and community engagement
- Growing an audience from scratch means you might not see quick results
This route can be a good fit if your brand is ready to invest in a long-term project and you want more creative freedom to shape your digital presence. It’s especially useful for companies aiming to build a character that evolves alongside their community.
Tips for Working with Virtual Influencers
Whether partnering or building your own, these best practices will help you make the most of your virtual influencer strategy:
- Clarify Goals: Understand what you want to achieve and how a digital persona supports that aim. Are you looking to drive clicks, grow brand awareness, or boost engagement on a new product launch? Having a specific outcome in mind will help shape the content and guide your partnership.
- Be Transparent: People appreciate honesty. Let your audience know the influencer is virtual, either directly or through subtle visual cues. It can actually make the content more interesting and spark conversations. Being upfront helps build trust and avoids confusion down the road.
- Focus on Storytelling: Audiences engage with characters that have depth. Give them a voice, interests, and a consistent style. Are they funny? Serious? Fashion-obsessed? Tech-savvy? A strong personality helps them stand out and makes the campaign feel more like storytelling than selling.
- Monitor Feedback: Pay attention to how your audience responds and be prepared to adapt. Are followers enjoying the content? Do they seem confused or curious? This kind of feedback can help you tweak future posts or decide if you need to change the tone, visuals, or messaging.
- Balance with Human Creators: You don’t have to pick one or the other. Mixing virtual influencers with real creators can create a well-rounded strategy. It adds variety to your feed and helps you reach different types of followers.
- Stay Compliant: Even if the influencer isn’t real, the legal stuff still applies. Make sure sponsored content is clearly labeled and follows platform rules. It’s not just about doing things by the book — it also shows your brand plays fair.
Examples of AI and Virtual Influencers in 2025
Lil Miquela
Lil Miquela is one of the best-known virtual influencers. Created in 2016 by LA-based company Brud, she’s styled as a 19-year-old Brazilian-American and has built a following of 2.4 million on Instagram. Her content blends fashion, lifestyle, and music.
She’s teamed up with big names like Prada, Calvin Klein, BMW, and Red Bull, and even released her own music with artists like Lauv and R3hab. She’s estimated to earn over $8,000 per sponsored post and could bring in millions each year.
Her campaigns have sparked both excitement and debate, especially when it comes to how digital influencers shape beauty expectations.
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Shudu
Shudu is known as the world’s first Black virtual supermodel. Created in 2017 by photographer Cameron-James Wilson, she has about 240,000 Instagram followers and focuses on high-fashion editorial content.
She’s appeared in campaigns for brands like Balmain and Smart Car and is part of a digital collective called The Diigitals. Her visuals are polished and artistic, showing a more stylized side of the virtual influencer world.
Aitana Lopez
Aitana Lopez is one of the newer AI influencers, created by Barcelona-based agency The Clueless. She was designed as a dependable digital model with a clear brand fit. Her look — including bright pink hair — and her content focus on fitness, gaming, and fashion.
Most of her posts are in Spanish and geared toward a local audience. She’s worked with brands like Olaplex, Intimissimi, and Brandy Melville Spain. Her monthly earnings reportedly reach up to €10,000.
Aitana stands out for her consistent posting style and strong branding, though conversations around transparency and digital authenticity still apply here.
Are Virtual Influencers Worth It?
Virtual influencers are no longer a novelty. They are a growing force in the social media world, offering new ways for brands to connect with audiences while controlling their message and scaling campaigns efficiently.
That said, they are not a one-size-fits-all solution. Brands must weigh the benefits of control and consistency against potential risks like lower emotional connection and audience skepticism.
For those ready to explore this space, combining human creativity with AI technology could unlock new content formats and storytelling opportunities that stand out in an increasingly crowded digital landscape.
Metricool can help you plan, publish, and track virtual influencer content just like you would with any other creator. Whether you’re testing a campaign or building a full digital character from scratch, it all starts with the right strategy and tools to bring your vision to life.
