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Artificial intelligence influencers offer a cost-effective, continuous presence on social media, and save time for brands running user-generated content campaigns.
However, the rise of synthetic influencers has sparked concern among human influencers, who fear that these digital competitors will erode their income from brands.
The spotlight on deepfakes featuring real-life influencer Ariel Marie promoting GetDirty wipes on social media drew attention to the impact of synthetic content. Marie’s consented doppelgänger, created by deepfake ads platform Arcads, showcased the potential of this technology to disrupt influencer marketing.
At influencer agency Open Influence, creators have not yet explored signing brand deals using their deepfakes, according to Maggie Reznikoff, the agency’s vice president, account management. Open Influence hasn’t been approached by Arcads directly, but it has received pitches from AI companies offering services such as cloning influencer voices in multiple languages or advanced video editing tools.
“It’s concerning,” Whalar Group co-founder and co-CEO James Street told ADWEEK. “There are definitely creators out there that would happily give their creative license to be used across the internet, since it allows you to be everywhere at once, in different languages, geographies, and appeal to different audiences.”
Street anticipates that up to 10% of the creator economy could be composed of AI influencers, with companies like Arcads working more with influencers that live on platforms like Fiverr looking to scale brand deals.
With major global events such as the Olympic Games and the U.S. presidential election on the horizon, deepfakes are slowly infiltrating social media platforms, requiring brands to take proactive measures to safeguard their reputation. Creator agencies already experimenting with AI to streamline workflows may build their own tech.
“It’s going to be a deepfake summer,” said Gartner vp analyst Nicole Greene. “We’re going to be at this interesting point where the technology is so sophisticated, it’s going to be hard to tell what’s real and what’s not.”
The growing deepfake market
Arcads—using HeyGen’s technology to create hyper-realistic AI influencers and ElevenLabs for text-to-speech solutions—works like Shutterstock, featuring a catalog of influencer options on its platform.
The company has signed formal contracts with creators to license their likeness, offering a one-time payment as compensation, Arcads co-founder Romain Torres told ADWEEK.