The first of MarkeTeam’s AI employees to be removed were Ella and Jane, followed by Daniel, Ted, and Maya. Ella and Jane drove 200,000 impressions and double-digit click throughs, according to Manova-Twito who noted LinkedIn’s ban on these profiles have not impacted the startup’s services.
“[These] AI agents were very successful on LinkedIn,” Manova-Twito said. “They attracted the attention of hiring managers on the platform and several other sites. They had hundreds of connections and seamlessly engaged with individuals in real-time daily. Yet, after a year, the profiles were suddenly taken down.”
LinkedIn did not respond to a request for comment about MarkeTeam’s AI avatars.
AI agents have become the marketing industry’s latest shiny new toy, with a wave of startups promising solutions for handling everything from booking reservations to negotiating business deals autonomously.
A Salesforce survey last year found that 77% of workers are open to trusting AI in the workplace eventually. Of those, 26% say they’d trust AI to operate autonomously within the next three years, while 41% anticipate this happening in three or more years.
Meanwhile, some people have fully embraced AI coworkers.
Michael Payne, senior research recruiter at Amazon Web Services told WorkLife that he views AI as “my extra coworker, as my friend.”
Despite the growing presence of AI-generated accounts, LinkedIn’s policy is different from Instagram and TikTok—two other platforms that have seen a rise in AI-driven accounts. While Instagram does not have a specific policy for AI influencers, it requires AI content to be labeled with ‘AI Info.’ And TikTok’s community guidelines state that AI influencers must be explicitly labeled as such, ensuring transparency for users engaging with AI-driven content.
