AI Influencers, a growing market

Hey everyone, hope all is well. This week I want to speak about a market that is growing at quite an interesting pace and it is not spoken about much in the western world, but that is seen great growth in Eastern markets such as China.

Attempting to define 'AI influencers'

The term is used quite loosely to describe any social media personality that is not a real person or the use of a 'Digital twin' of an actual human.

Sometimes it doesn't necessarily involve any AI, for example, Lil Miquela is a fictitious person that has amassed over 2.7 million followers on Instagram, she has been created and managed by a media company, Brud. It is not clear if any AI has actually been used when creating Miquela.

In other cases, the term is used in a more correct manner, where it can describe human-like NPCs that have their own personality, can communicate and interact in real time with their audience through the use of AI.

A look back at the past

Since the internet went public in 1991, it has tremendously shifted the influencer market. Back in the days, you had to be a talented actor, an accomplished sportsman or a rising popstar. The majority of the population was quite limited in the content they could access, it was mostly fed into them through the radio, newspaper and TV, there was almost zero chances of becoming a global icon without a big marketing team and budget behind you.

The internet promoted a democratization of content. It almost instantly 1000x the amount of content that someone could access and provided a way for anyone to showcase their content by uploading it into a variety of platforms. This created an opportunity for content creators to showcase themselves without needing a big team behind them. In the past 10 years this market saw tremendous growth, with platforms like Youtube and Instagram becoming the primary source of entertainment for some users. Personalities such as PewDiePie, Casey Neistat, MrBeast and the Kardashians have been able to accumulate hundreds of millions of followers, creating quite a lucrative business. Whilst allowing those more traditional style personalities such as athletes, singers and actors to further expand their reach and create new money-making opportunities.

Why are AI Influencers a thing

One of the main topics I discussed last week was that the next generation of customers has a perceived notion that both virtual and real life events have the same value, as well as growing virtual identities.

Naturally, this shift of behavior will most likely translate into this new AI Influencer world, where they probably won't care if it was a human that created that content, as long as it is good, they will consume it.

This could seem quite an outstretched idea, but the Chinese market paints a different picture.

The Chinese streaming and AI Influencer market

Chinese customers are huge fans of live-streams. Content creators and brands have taken full advantage of this to create a powerful sales channel for their products. It is estimated that over 1.2 million people work directly in streaming related jobs, and quite a big parcel of it's population consumes streams on a regular basis. Live-streaming as an e-commerce channel is expected to bring in £0.5tn in sales in 2023 (Daxue Consulting).

Chinese AI Startups have seen an opportunity to offer to both brands and influencers, a service where they can generate an AI clone (or Digital Twins) for streaming, with the most basic models only needing a minute of footage of a human in order to train a virtual live streamer (MIT Technology Review).

This means that the streaming channel can be active 24/7, a restless sales machine, not only for brands and stores, but for influencers too. Being always online and active streaming means more opportunity to acquire new followers and more time-on-screen for partnerships and sponsors.

This is where AI and Immersive will cross paths

The rise of conversational AIs tied in with a growing Immersive tech market, will create an interesting opportunity for Influencers to leverage their AI Powered 'Digital Twins' to create a new type of product, where fans can interact with them in a new immersive way.

Which is incredibly similar to what Meta is doing with their AI, by licensing incluencers like Snoop Dog, Tom Brady, Kendall Jenner, Charli D'amelio, leveraging their image to create conversational AI models that are shaped by their personality and voice. I have no doubt that Meta will at some point offer a way to interact with Meta AI on a 3D interface.

In a not-so-far future, you will have access to lightweight, stylish and comfortable AR glasses that will allow you to play golf whilst speaking to Tiger Woods, cook whilst being called an idiot sandwich by Gordon Ramsay or even practice your next fundraiser pitch with Mark Cuban.

See you next week,
Davi, MetaVisions