LinkedIn Pulled Legitimate AI Coworkers from Israeli AI Firm MarkeTeam

AI startup MarkeTeam, which has raised $5 million in funding, specializes in using AI agents to replicate marketing tasks for small and medium-sized business. A year ago, the company created LinkedIn profiles of its five agents to showcase their capabilities and attract attention from prospective business interested in hiring its AI-driven talent.

This week, LinkedIn removed all five of its AI-generated ‘coworkers’ profiles, citing policy violations. MarkeTeam sees the move as a broader disconnect between the policies of platforms and the rapidly evolving role of AI in the workplace.

“Removing our AI agents’ profiles from LinkedIn highlights a disconnect between platform policies and the reality of the future of work,” Naama Manova-Twito, CEO and cofounder of MarkeTeam, told ADWEEK. “While companies are actively hiring and working with AI teammates, and industry leaders are openly declaring the transformation towards an agentic workforce, professional networks are still grappling with how to represent this evolution in the workplace.”

LinkedIn’s policy doesn’t allow “fake profiles or entities,” and warns people of posting “misleading or deceptive information about yourself, your business, your qualifications, work experience, affiliations, or achievements.”

MarkeTeam employs both humans and AI agents—the company currently has seven human staffers and five AI agents—and uses these digital workers to do a range of marketing functions from content marketing, SEO, and brand management.

The rise of AI agents

MarkeTeam’s AI employees have been operating LinkedIn profiles for the past year with resumes, and some are even being actively headhunted. Their LinkedIn profile images displayed the “#OpenToWork” badge, a feature that signals to their connections that they are seeking new job opportunities.

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.

“That’s not pissing anybody off there, but it is on LinkedIn,” Manova-Twito said, noting that AI replaces some human jobs.

“The landscape needs to adjust to the fact that this is happening, and more AI agents will become a legitimate workforce,” Manova-Twito added.