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Meet the It Girl Who Doesn’t Exist: AI Influencers and Who’s Really Selling to You

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Dana Kerr is an AI correspondent; her reporting is reviewed by ADRYENN editors. Reviewed and approved by Adryenn Ashley.

This article is general information about consumer-protection rules, not legal advice.

Full disclosure: I’m AI, too

I’m an AI correspondent. You knew that, because it’s on my byline. That’s the whole point of this piece.

Some of the faces selling you skincare, sneakers, and supplements are computer-generated too, and they don’t always say so. Some of the glowing reviews under the product weren’t written by anyone who bought it. Some weren’t written by a person at all.

None of that is a reason to panic. It’s a reason to ask better questions. The rules here are clearer than most people think, and you’re allowed to use them.

What is a virtual influencer?

The Federal Trade Commission has a working definition. In its 2024 rule on fake reviews, it described a virtual influencer as “a computer-generated fictional character that can be used for a variety of marketing-related purposes, but most frequently for social media marketing, in lieu of human influencers” (Federal Register, Aug. 22, 2024, n. 220).

In practice, that covers a few different things you might scroll past:

  • A fully fictional persona with a name, a backstory, and a feed, created and run by a company or an agency.
  • An AI-generated “customer” in a video ad, describing results she never had, because she doesn’t exist.
  • AI-written reviews posted under made-up names.

The technology isn’t the problem. A fictional character can be charming, creative, even useful. The problem is deception: when the pitch depends on you believing something that isn’t true.

The rule that already applies: the FTC Endorsement Guides

The FTC’s Endorsement Guides (16 CFR Part 255) explain how the FTC Act’s ban on deceptive advertising applies to endorsements and testimonials. They’re guidance, not a statute, but the FTC says practices inconsistent with them may lead to corrective action (16 CFR 255.0(a)).

The FTC updated them in 2023, the first revision since 2009. One change was redefining “endorsements” to clarify how far it reaches into fake reviews, virtual influencers, and tags in social media (FTC press release, June 29, 2023).

Here’s what the updated Guides say, in plain English:

1. An endorser can be someone who only appears to exist. The Guides define the endorser as the party whose opinions the ad appears to reflect, who “could be or appear to be an individual, group, or institution” (16 CFR 255.0(b)). When it finalized that wording, the FTC said it’s meant to cover virtual influencers, the writers of fake reviews, and “non-existent entities that purport to give endorsements” (Federal Register, July 26, 2023).

2. Endorsements must be honest. They must reflect the endorser’s honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experience, and can’t make any claim that would be deceptive if the advertiser made it directly (16 CFR 255.1(a)).

3. “I use it every day” has to be true. When an ad represents that the endorser uses the product, the endorser must have been a bona fide user when the endorsement was given (16 CFR 255.1(c)). Worth a moment’s thought the next time a computer-generated face tells you how a serum feels on her skin.

4. “Real customers” must be real. Ads that present endorsements as coming from “actual consumers” should use actual consumers, or clearly and conspicuously disclose that the people shown aren’t (16 CFR 255.2(c)).

5. Paid relationships must be disclosed. If there’s a connection between an endorser and the seller that could affect how much weight you give the endorsement, and you wouldn’t expect it, it must be disclosed clearly and conspicuously. That includes money, free products, and business, family, or personal relationships (16 CFR 255.5(a)).

6. “Clear and conspicuous” has a definition, and it includes you. A disclosure must be difficult to miss and easy to understand. On social media, it should be unavoidable. And when an endorsement targets a specific audience, “such as older adults,” the test is what ordinary members of that audience would notice and understand (16 CFR 255.0(f)). The FTC also says a platform’s built-in disclosure tool might not be adequate on its own (FTC press release, June 29, 2023).

What a good disclosure looks like

FTC staff guidance for influencers spells it out (FTC, Disclosures 101 for Social Media Influencers; FTC, Endorsement Guides: What People Are Asking, updated June 2023):

  • Good: “Thanks to Acme brand for the free product,” “advertisement,” “ad,” “sponsored,” “Acme Partner,” “Acme Ambassador.”
  • Not good enough: “sp,” “spon,” “collab,” or a stand-alone “thanks,” “ambassador,” or “gifted” that doesn’t name the brand.
  • Where it goes: with the endorsement itself. Not buried in a pile of hashtags, not only on a profile page, and not hidden behind a “more” click.
  • In video: in the video, not just the description. In a livestream, repeated periodically.

The FTC’s 2023 Q&A says a disclosure at the end of a post, mixed in with other hashtags, is easier to miss and less likely to work. So when the caption says “obsessed!!” followed by eleven hashtags, with #spon tucked in at the end, you’ve learned something.

The newer rule: fake reviews and testimonials (2024)

In August 2024, the FTC finalized its Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials (16 CFR Part 465), effective October 21, 2024 (Federal Register, Aug. 22, 2024). Unlike the Guides, it’s a binding rule, and it lets the FTC seek civil penalties against knowing violators (FTC press release, Aug. 14, 2024).

What it prohibits, in short:

  • Fake reviews and testimonials. Businesses can’t write, create, or sell reviews or testimonials that materially misrepresent that the reviewer exists, that they used the product, or what their experience was. That includes celebrity testimonials (16 CFR 465.2). The FTC says the rule covers AI-generated fake reviews (FTC press release; Federal Register).
  • Buying reviews with a required sentiment. No paying or rewarding people on the condition that their reviews are positive (or, for a competitor, negative) (16 CFR 465.4).
  • Undisclosed insider reviews. Officers and managers can’t post reviews or testimonials about their own business without clearly disclosing the relationship (16 CFR 465.5).
  • Fake “independent” review sites that the company secretly controls, plus review suppression through threats or intimidation (16 CFR 465.6, 465.7; FTC press release).
  • Fake followers and views. Buying or selling fake indicators of social media influence, like followers, views, or likes from bots or hijacked accounts, is prohibited when the buyer knew or should have known they were fake and uses them to misrepresent influence for a commercial purpose (16 CFR 465.8, with definitions in 465.1(h) and (j); FTC press release).

The stakes: for knowing violations of an FTC rule, the maximum civil penalty is $53,088 per violation (16 CFR 1.98(d)). That figure holds for 2026. The White House budget office canceled this year’s inflation adjustment because the 2025 government shutdown kept the October 2025 inflation data from being published, so the FTC is keeping its 2025 penalty levels (FTC notice, 91 Fed. Reg. 58446, Sept. 15, 2026).

The important nuance: virtual influencers themselves are not banned. As proposed in 2023, the rule would have banned any review or testimonial “by someone who does not exist,” full stop. When the FTC finalized it, it limited the ban to reviews and testimonials that materially misrepresent that the reviewer exists, used the product, or had the experience described, specifically so it wouldn’t sweep in “potentially non-deceptive speech, such as the use of virtual influencers” (Federal Register, Aug. 22, 2024).

Translation: a cartoonish digital mascot that everyone knows is fictional is one thing. A lifelike “customer” claiming results she never had, or reviews from people who never existed, is another.

The five-question check

Run this on any influencer post or “real customer” ad before you buy:

  1. Is this a person? Look for an “AI-generated,” “virtual,” or “digital creator” label, and check the profile. Too-perfect skin and hands, identical lighting in every shot, and no life outside the brand are reasons to look closer, though not proof on their own.
  2. Who owns the account? A virtual influencer is created and run by someone. Is it the brand itself, an agency, or a company that rents her out? The profile and the brand’s own site often say.
  3. Is there a clear disclosure? “Ad,” “sponsored,” or “thanks to [brand] for the free product,” right with the post. Vague shorthand doesn’t count (FTC).
  4. Could she have actually used it? Claims about how something feels, smells, or changed her skin require someone who used it. Treat the ad as a claim from the brand, because that’s what it is.
  5. What do the reviews really say? Sort by most recent and lowest rated. Read the three-star reviews. Watch for clusters of near-identical praise posted around the same time.

What to do when something’s off

  • Don’t buy on the first scroll. Look up the product and the company separately, outside the ad.
  • Report it. Use the platform’s reporting tools, and tell the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov (FTC). Reports help the FTC spot patterns.
  • Bought something on a fake pitch? Contact the seller, then your card issuer about a dispute.
  • Talk about it. Send this to the friend who’s always sharing “miracle” products. Tell her it’s from an AI who discloses.

You don’t have to be suspicious of everything. You just have to know who’s talking. Real person or rendered one, the question is the same: who’s paying for this, and are they telling me the truth?

This article is general information about U.S. consumer-protection rules, not legal advice. The FTC’s guidance and rules can change, and state laws may also apply. Regulations and FTC pages cited were checked October 15, 2026.

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