35% Of People Have Bought A Product Or Service Promoted By A Virtual Influencer

As ordinary social media users turned influencers and brand employees slash ambassadors continue to impact consumers’ shopping decisions, a new kind of influencer has emerged. Virtual influencers, or computer-generated entities with artificial personas, are carving out a new avenue for marketers to build brand awareness and engage target audiences.

Created by agencies or brands, these artificial intelligence-powered influencers have their own social media presence, life stories, voices, careers and in many cases, a large fan base. Some have been made to look so lifelike that in a few years, it might be difficult to discern who’s real and who’s fake. 

They’re slowly gaining traction on social media and have already attracted interest from major brands. Instagram has given its coveted blue checkmark to 35 virtual influencers. And according to research from HypeAuditor, virtual influencers have almost three times the engagement of human influencers. Other than engagement, fictional influencers provide marketers total control over their brand image and save them the risk of a human influencer damaging their reputation. 

Three million people follow virtual influencer and singer Miquela, who describes herself as a “​​19-year-old robot living in LA,” and whose music is available to buy on Apple Music. Then there’s Samsung’s virtual influencer Zero who hosted the company’s live video shopping event for the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S22. Shudu Gram, the world’s first digital supermodel, starred in a campaign for French luxury fashion house Balmain. Additionally, the World Health Organization previously tapped virtual star Knox Frost to spread safe COVID-19 practices. 

Last year, LG enlisted virtual musician Reah Keem to showcase the company’s new disinfecting robots during its Consumer Electronics keynote. More recently, a digital human named Sophie, who has partnered with brands like BMW and IBM, started selling a collection of nonfungible tokens (NFTs).

International Data Corporation (IDC) predicts companies worldwide will shell out a whopping $432.8 billion on AI solutions this year, a 19.6 percent growth year-over-year. Meanwhile, big tech is building the metaverse, which seems like the perfect place to put virtual influencers to work. 

A new survey from Influencer Marketing Factory measured US social media users’ familiarity with and trust of virtual influencers and how much they impact shopping decisions. The firm surveyed 1,044 American adults in March 2022. Below is a recap of the report’s key findings.

Key Findings:

• On average, 58 percent of those surveyed follow at least one virtual influencer
• 75 percent of 18- to 24-year olds, 67 percent of 25- to 44-year-olds, 51 percent of 45- to 54-year olds and 26 percent of individuals 55 years old and older follow at least one virtual influencer
• 24 percent of users that are not currently following at least one virtual influencer were not aware of their existence
• 26.6 percent of users who follow at least one virtual influencer do so for the content, 18.6 percent for the storytelling, 15.5 percent for music and 15.5 percent for inspiration
• 35- to 44-year-old users are more trusting of virtual influencers’ product reviews (6.5/10) and find them more relatable (6.2/10) as compared to other age groups
• Individuals aged 55 and over are the least trusting of virtual influencers’ product reviews (4.9/10) and find them relatable less often than other age groups (4.6/10)
• 35 percent of all respondents reported that they’ve purchased a product or service promoted by a virtual influencer
• 40 percent of 18- to 34-year olds, 45 percent of 35- to 44-year-olds, 28 percent of 45- to 54-year olds and 18 percent of individuals 55 years old and older have purchased a product or service promoted by a virtual influencer
• 51.4 percent aren’t interested in virtual influencers, 25.4 percent prefer human influencers to virtual ones and 24.1 percent didn’t know virtual influencers existed
• The majority of virtual influencers are followed on YouTube (28.7 percent), Instagram (28.4 percent), TikTok (20.5 percent) and Facebook (14.6 percent)