Social media influencers are online personalities with multitudes of followers on various social media platforms like YouTube, X, TikTok, Instagram, and more. Successful influencers are hired for marketing purposes in the hopes that the influencer’s endorsement or use of a product will result in brand awareness, loyalty, and increased sales/revenue. To use the fashionable marketing terms, influencers act as “brand ambassadors.”

Nearly all social media influencers are real human beings, but there are some influencers who are virtual. Virtual influencers are digitally created and are generally operated by an artificial-intelligence program. So far, no virtual influencer is purely automated. That is, all of them require some level of human input and control.

For businesses, there are many advantages to employing a virtual influencer over using a human one. These include:

• Full control over the message presented by the influencer
• Full control over how the influencer looks, where the influencer “goes,” what it “does,” etc.
• Complete loyalty, particularly from company-created virtual influencers
• 24/7 availability and focus on the brand
• Elimination of any possible public scandal (since virtual influences have no life or off-internet existence)
• No concern for false authenticity since, when operated correctly, consumers know the influencer and the content is staged
• More effective than human influencers — according to some studies

Are virtual influencers legal?

In general, the use of virtual influencers is perfectly legal. The use of fictional characters and creations in advertising has been common for centuries. The main area where legality becomes an issue is where the virtual influencer is depicted to look like a real human being and is either presented as a real human or there is no disclosure that the virtual influencer is computer-generated.

Essentially, the issue is false, fraudulent, and misleading advertising. In 2025, computer graphics and software will be good enough to create virtual influencers that look and act real. Indeed, it often takes a skeptical attitude and a close examination to discover the falsity.

Under existing State and federal laws, false, fraudulent, or misleading advertising is not allowed. Civil and criminal penalties can be imposed for businesses that engage in such activities. Further, false advertising is also considered a deceptive business practice. Deceptive business practices are also not allowed under State and federal laws.

Virtual influencers that look like cartoons or are otherwise clearly not human do not present these legal issues (as long as the other aspects of the marketing are not false and/or fraudulent). This is because there is no danger that consumers will be misled by a non-human-looking virtual influencer. The theory is that humans are willing to follow the advice and counsel of others whom they have come to like and trust. It is that trust that businesses want to tap when they use influencers for marketing campaigns. Using a real-looking virtual influencer is misleading and deceptive if there is no full, complete, and prominent disclosure of the fact that the influencer is virtual.

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