Socialfolk
The rise of ai influencers
AI influencers look impressive, but do people actually trust them?
They’re popping up in more campaigns, and brands are understandably curious about where they fit, but the reaction from real audiences isn’t excitement. It’s uncertainty. And there’s a reason for that.
AI influencers are digitally perfect in a way no human could ever be. They never age, never have a bad day, and never make a mistake. On paper, that looks ideal: they don’t sleep, they don’t complain, and they never go off-brand. But perfection creates its own problems. It sets unrealistic standards, blurs the line between what’s real and what’s engineered, and makes it harder for people to feel genuinely connected to the content they see.
And with everything going on in the world right now, the cost of living rising, job security shaky, creators relying on this work to pay their bills, choosing to pay a fake personality over a real human doesn’t sit well with audiences. It comes across as out of touch. People want brands to support people, not pixels.
Because the truth is simple: creator marketing has always relied on real human emotional endorsement, someone who actually uses the product, has lived experience behind it, and feels trustworthy.
AI can’t replicate that, and audiences can feel the difference.
If anything, the last decade on Instagram proves the point.
For years, the platform was built on perfect, curated, impossibly polished aesthetics. Everything matched, everything was filtered, everything looked flawless. And now we’re in a world where AI can produce that level of perfection quicker and better than any human could. If perfection is the brief, AI wins every single time.
But perfection isn’t persuasive to real people anymore.
People are tired of the glossy, manicured version of life that dominated social media for so long. After years of curated feeds, audiences want something real, emotion, honesty, lived experience. They want creators who feel human. Creators who show the highs and lows, the lessons learnt, the things that haven’t gone to plan, the moments you recognise in your own life. That’s what makes someone trustworthy.
AI can mimic the look of authenticity, but it can’t feel anything. It has no instinct, no emotional gut reaction, no personal history. It can’t understand what it’s like to love a product, rely on it, or recommend it because it’s genuinely changed something for you. It can only imitate those beats. And imitation isn’t influence.
Everything we know about creator marketing comes back to the same truth: authenticity builds trust, and trust drives results. Human creators connect because they’re real.
Human creators have emotions, struggles, memories, opinions, and experiences that AI simply cannot replicate or fabricate in a believable way that connects emotionally.
Audiences can feel the difference instantly, one feels alive, the other feels manufactured.
That’s why swapping a real creator for an AI character is essentially trading human trust for something shiny but hollow. It might look good, and it might be efficient, but it won’t move people in the way a real creator can.
Influence is human. And it always will be.
When you strip all of this back, the heart of the issue is simple: people connect with people. That’s what makes creator marketing work, and that’s why human voices still matter more than anything AI can produce.
Brands can experiment with new technology, but the real influence, the kind that builds trust, loyalty and long-term impact, still comes from real humans with real experiences behind their content.
And that’s not changing anytime soon.
About Social folk
Social Folk is a global award-winning influencer and gifting agency, recognised as one of the UK’s leading creator marketing agencies.
They empower brands to connect at scale through authentic, creator-led storytelling, specialising in global influencer campaigns, data-backed seeding and gifting, and high-impact brand activation events.
Winners of the European Agency Awards 2025 and multiple influencer marketing accolades, Social Folk leverages cutting-edge technology, human psychology, and data-driven insights to help brands drive engagement, loyalty, and ROI in the ever evolving creator economy landscape.
