In the world of influencer marketing, influencers have become a cornerstone for brands seeking to engage with their audiences. While human influencers have long dominated this space, a new player has entered the field: AI influencers.
These virtual personalities are making waves, but how do they stack up against their human counterparts?
We looked into the earnings, revenue streams, and audience engagement of a total of 11,514 virtual influencers and their human counterparts to get the answers.
Human influencers earn 46 times
more than their AI counterparts.
31% of AI influencers make money by
promoting adult content, while only 15% of
human influencers do so.
Only 8% of AI influencers make money
by collaborating with brands, compared
to 37% for human influencers.
Sponsored posts from human influencers get
2.7 times more engagement than sponsored
posts from AI influencers.
Human influencers are loved 5.8 times
more than AI influencers.
When discussing the contrast between AI and human influencers, it is important to first define AI influencers. These influencers use AI generated images to create human-like interactions with their followers with a certain personality. They have their own presence on various social media platforms and interact with genuine followers.
Some well-known examples of AI influencers are Lil Miquela, a 19-year-old musician and model with over 3 million followers on Instagram, and Imma Gram, a virtual model from Japan with over 400,000 followers.
According to the number of likes each post, we ranked the top 10 most-love AI influencers.
We broke up the average likes per post of an AI influencer by country to identify the top 10 nations that love AI influencers the most.
While AI influencers are growing in popularity, they still have a long way to go to catch up to their human counterparts. Human influencers earn 46 times more than AI influencers per post, with an average of $78,777 compared to $1,694 for AI influencers. This is likely because human influencers have more established relationships with brands and are seen as more trustworthy.
AI influencers are more likely to engage in the promotion of adult content compared to their human counterparts. Specifically, 31% of AI influencers are involved in endorsing adult content, nearly double the 15% of human influencers who engage in similar promotions.
On the other hand, human influencers continue to dominate traditional brand collaborations, with 37% making money from partnerships with brands. This contrasts starkly with just 8% of AI influencers who earn through similar means. The noticeable difference emphasizes the market's greater trust and value in human connections when it comes to promoting a brand.
Despite their technological prowess, AI influencers still fall short when it comes to engagement. Human influencers receive 5.8 times as many likes per post compared to their AI counterparts.
The significant contrast showcases the strong preference audiences have for content that feels more personal and relatable, which is a trait that human influencers possess. This is clear from the fact that human influencers receive an average of 414,754 likes per post as opposed to AI influencers, who only receive 71,491 likes per post.
Human
AI
| Likes/post | Comments/post | |
|---|---|---|
|
Human
|
187,039 | 2049 |
|
AI
|
86,786 | 1953 |
Human influencers are significantly outperforming their AI counterparts when it comes to sponsored posts. The data reveals that sponsored posts by human influencers generate 266% more engagement than those by AI influencers.
They receive an average of 2,049 comments per post, compared to 1,953 for AI influencers. This substantial difference highlights the ability of human influencers to connect with their audience and drive meaningful interactions on behalf of brands. Therefore, brands seeking to maximize their engagement and impact may find greater success by partnering with human influencers who can forge genuine connections with their followers.
Looking ahead, the gap in engagement and affection could potentially narrow as AI technology advances. As natural language processing and machine learning improve, AI influencers may be able to provide more personalized and emotionally impactful interactions. However, it is uncertain whether AI can truly replicate the nuanced human touch.
To sum up, while AI influencers are making progress in terms of followers and visibility, the main challenge is to close the gap in emotional engagement. Brands and marketers who focus on AI influencers will have to come up with innovative ways to enhance the authenticity and relatability of these virtual personalities to effectively compete with human influencers in the industry.
We gathered a list of 114 AI influencer accounts using Instagram recommendations and Starngage, and selected their human counterparts based on similar demographics and an equivalent number of followers. For each AI influencer account, there are 100 corresponding human influencer accounts with similar demographics and follower counts. This brings the total number of influencers we investigated to 11,514.
Data on earnings per post and engagement rates were collected via Hyperauditor for both AI and human influencer accounts. Additionally, MarketingHub was utilized to gather data on likes and comments per post.
Insights were derived from records with sufficient data, and any records with missing data were excluded from the final analysis.