The influencer of the future is artificial and cheaper

An influencer who never complains, does not incur travel expenses and is also available day and night. Barcelona influencer agency The Clueless created one with artificial intelligence. “We have no idea where this ends.”

Aitana Lopez is a young, sporty and confident career woman. With her healthy lifestyle she elegantly holds her own in the hustle and bustle of Barcelona, ​​where she lives. Despite her young age, she already earns more than 100,000 euros annually.

Anyone who follows Aitana’s stories on the social media platform Instagram knows exactly what she does during the day. The day we checked, she ate raspberries on a terrace, met her friend Maia’s cat and tried on new sneakers. Followers can give their opinion about those sneakers: good choice or not? As soon as her followers get the chance to interact, they make great use of it.

With her more than 311,000 followers, Aitana is an influencer that matters. But she’s not real. Created by Diana Nuñez and Rubén Cruz, the founders of the Barcelona influencer agency The Clueless, it is made entirely with artificial intelligence (AI).

Not long after Nuñez and Cruz started their agency, they noticed that they were often annoyed by the people they worked with. “We were both reluctant to rely on young people with big egos and ridiculously high standards to ensure the success of our agency,” Cruz says.

There was something else that stood out, says Núñez. ‘Many potential customers who came to us in the early days were put off by the prices. For a customer with a campaign budget of up to 3,000 euros, we simply could not do anything. Influencers won’t work for that amount of money.’

Because influencers are vital for many companies to promote their products, Cruz and Nuñez came up with the idea of ​​creating a more willing influencer with AI. It took them no more than a few months of experimenting.

On July 7, 2023, Aitana’s first post appeared on Instagram. She had two sisters: Aisha and Maia. While Aitana stood out with her pink hair and sometimes provocative choice of clothing, Aisha’s looks and outfits were a lot more modest. For all intents and purposes, Maia was somewhere between them.

Because it simply did not work for an influencer, Aisha is no longer there. Maia still exists, but her 26,000 followers are nothing compared to Aitana’s.

With Aitana’s account, the owners of The Clueless initially earned 3,000 euros per month. The AI ​​influencer now easily earns them 10,000 euros per month. She mainly works for companies that have something to do with sports, clothing, sports shoes or nutritional supplements.

Because Aitana does not fit into every campaign and is not allowed to appear too often, Nuñez and Cruz have now developed thirty other AI models. On their computer they show a catalog like traditional modeling agencies have, divided into men and women, young and old, toned and slightly rounder. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think you were watching real people.

‘We start with these thirty models. Once it’s up and running, we can develop more,” Cruz said. ‘The complete development of this catalog costs 5,000 euros per model. A database of thirty models is therefore a significant investment.’

The models do not all get a virtual life and a daily maintained Instagram account like Aitana. They will do smaller campaigns, especially for SMEs with a limited budget. “We think there is a market there,” says Nuñez. ‘Famous brands and major fashion houses will probably continue to work with highly paid influencers and models, but we are democratizing the influencer and model market for entrepreneurs with less financial resources.’

And what does Aitana’s future look like? Cruz and Nuñez look at each other questioningly. ‘We could never have imagined what happened in those ten months. Followers want to talk to Aitana, an Italian influencer asked Aitana to do a campaign with her. We have no idea where this ends. Maybe Barcelona will soon be too small for Aitana and she will have to move to an even bigger metropolis.’