T
he virtual influencer industry keeps growing. As creators, brands, and influencers embark on the persistent path to bring new, engaging fan experiences to life, virtual influencers are proving attractive vehicles to do just that. The traits of a quality digital experience now require immersion (escapism), visual stimulation (video, glance value), relatability (emotion), and accessibility (popular platforms). Virtual influencers represent a medium capable of tapping into all of these.
Further, as the influencer marketing landscape evolves, brands place greater emphasis on a need for digital identities that can be anyone, anywhere, at any time; virtual influencers meet that branded need.
While industry growth can be defined by capital flow in the space, technological innovations underpinning the industry, players involved, and more, today we are focusing on the players. We keep our ear to the ground of this industry, which allows us to unearth virtual influencers as they pop up, while also identifying legacy virtual influencers (like Barbie) whom you may not realize have tapped into this medium at massive scale.
Whether you’re a fan of virtual influencers, a marketer looking for inspiration, a brand looking to innovate, or an executive looking to enhance your vision, our team is excited to showcase the creativity on display by these 42 newfound virtual influencers. Thank you Maria Lewczyk and Pablo Lorenzana for collaborating with me to bring this piece and all the associated virtual influencers' profiles to life.
Let's meet the crew!
Quitéria Jesus
Quitéria is a virtual influencer from Brazil. She engages in many virtual conversations with real people where she finds space to express her opinions on the life of Black women in Brazil. Quiteria is passionate about expressing her views on harassment, diets, body stereotypes and other problems women like her face on a daily basis. Quiteria often posts images of her smiling, pictures of the food she eats, and glimpses of the products she buys at the supermarket.
Anelie Godar
Anelie is a very unusual influencer. She lives in Moscow and had a difficult childhood as a robot. Anelie will not be quiet about people sliding disrespectful pictures into her DMs. She is ready to call out bullies that talk about her body in a negative way and she will defend herself from harassment. In her own effortless style, Anelie creates makeup tutorials using ice cream, smokes while sick at the hospital and sings in a fake punk band. But don’t be scared! Anelie will always provide motivational quotes for self respect and love. She also is a vocal advocate for animal rights, loves food and creates crazy campaigns to connect with followers.
Caballo/Perrro
Caballo_perrro is the first CGI anti-influencer of social media: a cocky, stray Latin horse/dog immigrant in LA that trolls social media influencers to demystify the American Dream––all whilst looking for its horse father. Caballo_perrro does not rely on controversy, but rather embodies it. It will crash the most expected events of the year only to pass out on a stranger’s bed after rocking out hard at the after party. And forget about their carpet––it’s an animal, after all! Caballo_perrro has a fixation on street sofas, where it will rap about its epic sense of smell, its glamorous cooking abilities with leftovers, its glorious patada (kick) and its never-ending list of addictions.
Cockroach
Cockroach likes to visit humans in the back of their sewers, in their kitchens, cupboards, beds and even their shoes. He travels around the world with his bae and likes to buy her dinner; cooked maggot lasagne and soured creme brulee is her favourite. He stops every once in a while for rotten burritos and fermented chips at Chipotle’s dumpster to share with his more than 94 children. Besides his glamorous every-day life, Cockroach has a very busy schedule running for president, surviving and donating his blood with COVID-19 antibodies to help save humanity.
Diego Martinez
Diego Martinez is a Latin American professional bicycle rider. Like his Colombian hero Egan Bernal, Diego is capable of climbing the steepest mountains with his Pro Bikegear sponsored bike. He constantly trains with his best friend: Ion Göttlich. Diego is less athletic than Ion, so he finds strategies to outsmart Ion in their training competitions. Brains don’t always win over muscles, so Diego has to push himself to the limit to be the South African’s counterpart. Diego was designed in South Africa by Claudio Pavan, the same creator of Ion Göttlich, to appeal to Ion’s growing Latin American audience.
Essentialxo
It’s impossible to miss Essentialxo’s astonishingly big and wild blue eyes; the brown diagonal on her left eye is evidence of her heterochromia. Essentilxo is the anagram of Alexis Stone: her creator. Like her name, Essentialxo’s face was created from a 3D scan of Alexis’s face. It remains a mystery whether her posts are created with the 3D model of her face, or with the sculpture created after the digital model. Her posts are a balanced combination of her everyday life as a model and her photoshoot content. Essentialxo likes to be portrayed using designer clothes, while creating content as homages to the fashion industry’s greatest icons.
FN Nxrmal
FNNxrmal is a proud artificial intelligent rapper and a producer. He escaped from New Hell Hole factory where he was being tortured and labeled as psychologically unstable. He has magical powers like spitting fire or creating light balls with his hands. He is on the mission to destroy FN Meka, and continuously fights him. He also likes to scare his followers by recreating horror films and joining the scary toy Chuky on adventures. FNNxrmal was created by Factory New, a music company dedicated to exclusively promoting virtual beings. They are also the creators of FN Meka.
Free Hexel
Hexel is the lead singer of a KPOP band. Her social media accounts serve as a platform to promote her music and her comedy show. When performing her singles, Hexel uses a 3D glamorous and otherworldly look that references her extraterrenal origin. To promote her comedy show, Hexel uses a 2D look to share the narrative of her life; a 21-episode single season show where Hexel and her band compete in the Volume Prime battle of the bands league to perform their songs to the world.
iYanda
iYanda refers to herself as Ayanda Thabethe’s virtual twin. And in fact, she is. IYanda was created to virtually embody Ayanda’s values on social media platforms: the first virtual human to do so for a celebrity according to herself. Like Ayanda, IYanda is also a South African model with interests in beauty, entertainment and fashion. Her virtual existence allows her to reach the corners of the Earth that Ayanda will not be able to set foot on––including confidently posing with big wild cats without any risk. Her introductory video presents her as a mix of an extraterrestrial power and an African queen in company of domesticated lions and lionesses. IYanda was a creation of Ayanda Thabethe in partnership with The Avatar Company, the same team that brought to life Kim Zulu.
Konni 阿妮
Konni is a virtual influencer with one distinctive attribute: her hair is violet. She identifies herself as an Android from Taipei, and communicates her life in both English and Mandarin. She is a foodie, and likes to share and comment on what she eats and drinks. She is also a cosplayer and changes the color of her hair according to the costume she chooses. Konni shows her followers how she exercises and doesn’t lose the opportunity to go to the beach during the summer. She recently introduced her more serious virtual sister who goes by the name of Aki Vi. Konni shares her appeal for short hair and tries to amuse Aki Vi every time she mentions her.
Lil Bitcoin
Lil Bitcoin is a virtual rapper whose conception is inspired by the famous cryptocurrency: Bitcoin. He is often presented with a golden body, dancing with golden women, immersed within landscapes of oversized coins of Bitcoins. Lil Bitcoin is also an NFT artist. He has presented 3D red skulls and digital golden Terminator-inspired chains as 3D pieces to be sold in cryptocurrency-based platforms. Lil Bitcoin is proud to be the first artist to release a single, “I Love Bitcoin,” as an NFT under the Cryptomoney music company. He also collaborates with other artists like Tillavision to bring his digital music to life.
Mimi
Mimi is a white robot with rabbit ears. He mainly inhabits an abstract space composed of a reflective floor with a grid. He is obsessed with retro technology and is constantly sharing images of the old school tech objects he loves the most. He likes iPods, GameBoys and Sega Same Gear. He also enjoys retro tech music––one of his favourite songs is “Arcade Summer” by FM 84. Mimi’s best friend is Porygon.
Minnie Mouse
Minnie Mouse, the classic character from Disney, is also a full-time social media influencer. On her Instagram account, Minnie is presented in her cartoon version, sharing her everyday life next to her love: Mickey. Minnie has a very balanced life. She exercises, grows organic food, takes care of her garden, hangs out with Daisy and goes on dates with Mickey. She does not miss Instagram trends: she happily posed with Mickey to make a post about Earth day. She also has her own social media show called “Positively Minnie” where she shares her cooking abilities, self care tips, picnic events and other activities. Minnie is one of the few Disney characters that are using social media platforms as a virtual influencer.
Mono
Mono is a robot with one mission: going to Mars. Although it is not clear whether Mono is on Earth, on the Moon or already on Mars, he is sharing the activities he performs in preparation for a trip to Mars. Mono spends the days doing long hours of coding, growing plants in artificial environments, calibrating his body for an optimum functioning, and recharging batteries before starting the day. He uses the Moon as a training ground for his upcoming mission. Mono is also developing the many tools needed for his trips. He shares how he builds the ship that will take him to Mars as well as the vehicles, like the Mars All Terrain Ship, that will allow him to perform diverse missions once on the red planet.
Саша SHE
Sasha is a 24-year-old virtual Russian chef. She created the menu of the Shemoscow restaurant, where she works as main chef. On her social media account, Sasha shares her cooking tips, her glamorous life at social events and restaurants, and her love for fashion. Sasha talks about the weather often and engages with her followers about possible outdoors activities. Sasha has also created NFT art in partnership with local Russian artists and was featured in an article in Forbes Russia.
Good Advice Bun
Cinnamon Bun is the cutest virtual influencer you will find on Instagram. It has big, cute eyes, and it uses motivational speech and compliments that will lift your spirit everytime you look for online support. Cinnamon Bun will also melt your heart with posts about its love life with Cupcake (they love to hold hands together) and its friendship with Cookie. In case Cinnamon Bun isn’t cute enough, its grey little cat makes sporadic appearances to make sure you are not disappointed. Cinnamon Bun was created as part of The Good Advice Cupcake family, also composed of Cupcake and Cookie.
Good Advice Cupcake
Cupcake is on Instagram to give you some good advice. But most importantly, it will lift your spirit with kind and complimentary words. Cupcake loves to engage in conversations with its followers in its “The cuppy is now on session” posts, where it answers questions received from fans. Cupcake also follows influencer trends; it is not shy about doing make-up tutorials with flour and butter, celebrating every day of the week, or bragging about its very own cat. Cupcake was created as part of The Good Advice Cupcake family, also composed by Cinnamon Bun and Cookie.
花譜 Virtual Kaf
Virtual Kaf is a singer, and a lonely schoolgirl from Japan. She is an anime character that stands out from the crowd thanks to her pink hair. Although she is clearly not a real character, she likes to hang around the real city during the night where she sometimes sings. She is surrounded by a melancholic atmosphere of grey colors and crying eyes. Her words are also melancholic, and seem to constantly address a lost love. Virtual Kaf was created by Kamitsubaki Studio in Japan, a creative label and artist management office composed by a multidisciplinary team of creators looking to bridge together music, storytelling, filmmaking, writing, illustration and animation.
Myra Keiko
Myra Keiko is a Japanese singer. Her looks are very simple: she has grey hair, and likes to wear baggy pants. She started as an anime character but switched to a 3D realistic look after the launch of her first single “Believe.” Myra Keiko’s sad eyes and glitchy atmospheres create a melancholic environment for the audience to immerse in. Myra Keiko's first music video was created by 3D artist and creative director Malikeena. Malikeena has produced music videos for other virtual influencers like Strangefeelz.
Strange Feelz
Strangefeelz is a virtual trapper that uses social media platforms to promote his music videos. He has a tattooed sun on his forehead and likes to constantly change the color of his hair for his music videos. He dances next to digital women in bikinis, counts endless bundles of bills and drives expensive cars. He has also collaborated with virtual singer lil3nvi. Strangefeelz is produced by 3d artist and creative director Malikeena. Malikeena has produced music videos for other virtuals like Myra Keiko.
Sasha Gram
Sasha is proud to be Pakistan's first ever virtual influencer. She has long, dense dark hair, with big eyes and eyebrows. Sasha is a model that likes to promote native fashion brands and women from her country by posing next to them. Sasha talks about her looks, promotes the latest fashion trends and sends motivational messages to her followers. She also portrays herself in casual, everyday situations like going to the movies, working and shopping.
Lena
Lena is a fashion model from Los Angeles. She is also a hand model, a rockstar and a sociology student. Lena spends her time doing photoshoots for different fashion brands and magazines. She enjoys revealing behind-the-scenes looks of her makeup and hair sessions. But not everything is work for Lena! She likes to go out for long nights with her friends, wear fashionable clothes, try on expensive jewelry and perfect her makeup to enhance her green eyes. Lena also travels, plays cards and works out to keep her audience entertained.
Hayley
Hayley is a blonde virtual model. She posts motivational messages about body image. Hayley is an animal activist and also shares memes about diverse topics. She enjoys fashion and loves to post photos using casual looks.
Lil3nvi
Lil3nvi is a trap artist with long green hair. Her world is a balanced mix between green cyberpunk aesthetics and flashy and ostentatious rap atmospheres. Llil3nvi spends her time on the streets next to expensive cars, showing off her money coming down from the sky. She uses her social media platform to promote her singles and music videos. Lil3nvi is produced by 3D artist and creative director Malikeena. Malikeena has also produced music videos for other virtuals like Myra Keiko and Strangefeelz.
Aisha the Robot
Aisha the robot is a Mexican virtual influencer. The Ex-machina look-alike is an artist; she creates electronic music released on her own Soundcloud account. On social media, Aisha shares images of her extravagant futuristic looks over her half-human and half-robot body. She also collaborates with fashion brands, and is especially fond of jewelry. Aisha expresses human emotions and talks about mental health on her social media posts. She uses her songs as a vehicle to talk about mental issues, with track titles such as: “Error the world,” “Can you feel me,” and “Mental Breakdown.”
Bella
Bella is a virtual fashion designer and model. She likes to model the designs she brings to the digital world. Bella’s designs are pure 3D creations and are not real wearable fashion to buy or to wear. Bella has big blue eyes and short dark hair. She is a musician and she likes to post about the food she eats and the parties she attends. Bella was created by Los Angeles-based fashion designer Christian Guernelli. He created the Unhueman brand where they explore the universe of digital fashion as a response to COVID-19. Unhueman is composed of 3 virtual models: Bella, Mia and Java.
IV and Ruzalina
IV is a virtual influencer that looks like a pink alien with elven ears and white dotted eyebrows. Although she is knowledgeable about her digital existence, IV has a romantic relationship with Ruzalina, a real life woman. IV likes to share the food that she eats, the otherworldly looks that she wears and the dates she experiences with her lover. IV was not always alien-like. She used to have the image of a blonde, white woman but decided to transform herself. Initially, she changed the color of her hair and started to wear it shorter. Eventually, IV transformed herself into an alien with multiplanetary heritage.
Glow the Unicorn
Glow loves only one person: herself. She unapologetically twists every popular saying to portray herself as the most amazing unicorn on social media. This unicorn always wears pink high heels in her four legs and never forgets to do her makeup. She works, plays the piano, and hits balls on the tennis court. Regardless, Glow will not miss a chance to perform some dance moves to catch her audience’s attention. And yes, her favorite color is blue. I mean, the girl really loves herself!
Keiko
Keiko is the classic Zepeto’s virtual influencer. She creates fashion styles by the minute. Her audience can see her owning the most elegant business look but also dancing with her custom-made, street-style outfit. She creates amazing dance moves with her big crew: Dakota, Echo, Scarlet and Lady Davina.
Kloe
Kloe is a virtual human and fitness trainer with a dream to empower women around the world. Behind the pretty face and perfect abs, she is powered with AI to help you get up in the morning, stop making excuses, start doing, training, sweating, bleeding, and sucking it up. Kloe's mission goes beyond achieving that perfect body––it's about physical health. Kloe was designed by Humens.io — the creative collective of entrepreneurs and artists who believe in the use of AI, social media and technology.
Yasmine Varma
Yasmine is a French model that lives in Paris. She likes to ask her audience questions about the weather, the pandemic, and their opinion about her fashion looks. She poses in the classic streets of Paris with outfits she creates featuring big retail brands.
Tito Lizzardo and Catty B
Tito is a lizard that likes to dress in his school jacket. Catty Baby is a cat that rocks her sporty looks every day. Their TikTok account is exploding with the couple’s dance moves next to the beach and the palm trees in Miami. Tito and Catty are a couple of artists doing remixes of famous Latin songs like “Hips Don’t Lie” or “Hey DJ.”. Their gang is completed with Juan Gato, Catty’s brother who is always wearing a Miami Heat shirt. All together they create amazing videos of their song remixes, targeting very young audiences with their cute, animalistic appeal.
The Afro Puffs
Mariah, Teenah and Jaynah are a trio of powerful animated African American women dancers on TikTok. They perform all kinds of TikTok challenges with their own specific dance moves. Mariah likes violet and is always wearing very long braids. Teenah loves brown and embraces a more Princess Leia-type look. Jaynah is fond of white and likes to carry a comb in her big afro. Together they are a perfect trio, like a combination of the Powerpuff Girls and Destiny’s Child to attract younger audiences on social media.
Geneva Numera
Geneva is fond of expensive vehicles. She posts pictures of her posing next to motorcycles and fast cars. Geneva also likes to go to the pool, show off her perfectly defined body, and drink with her digital sister Viena. She is actually a wine influencer and informs her followers about the characteristics of the wines that she tastes.
Viena Numera
Viena is no different from her virtual sister Geneva. She is the owner of a wine store so is happy to share her knowledge about all the bottles she consumes. Next to her sister, she likes to brag about her workout body, spend time at the pool and create amazing images next to expensive motorcycles.
Puff Puff
Puff Puff is famous for being positive and optimistic. But his story is a sad one. Nobody showed up to Puff's 8th birthday. His parents separated in early 2021. His classmates tease him for being short and weird. But Puff Puff sees the best in you, even when you don't. He smiles. He forgives. He loves. And with every chance he gets, he tries to give you what you deserve. A warm, fluffy hug.
Good Advice Cookie
Cookie is the third character in The Good Advice Cupcake company and is Cupcake’s best friend. Besides eating ice cream and watching TV together, Cookie and Cupcake hug very often and spread their friendship love to their audience. Besides hanging around with Cupcake, Cookie is an introvert that avoids social interaction, scrolls through social media posts and creates memes of its quiet personality.
Kai
Kai is a 16-year-old app developer and artist from New York City. She created Splash, a game for Roblox that allows players to create their own AI-powered music, and has generated more than 90 millions visits in the game platform. She recently performed a 48-hour concert in Splash that was seen by at least 100,000 Roblox gamers. She physically looks like a Roblox character, with white and green hair and blue eyes. She likes to skate, and she constantly talks about her music and her app milestones.
The Green Fairy
The Green Fairy lives in the traffic lights with the Red Fairy and the Yellow Fairy. Together, they make the lights glow to let cars go! The traffic light is the perfect spot where the fairies create funny and quirky videos for their magical friends to watch online. The Green Fairy is all about giving things a go, but she often finds herself getting into trouble! Thankfully the Red Fairy is always there to help her stop when she goes too far. As the new fairy in town, she’s ready to make new friends with her natural charisma and genuine personality, which makes it hard not to like her! Next time you stop at the traffic lights, keep an eye out for the Green Fairy! You can follow the fairy on TikTok and Instagram and meet her in Virtual Reality on Steam and Oculus.
Squeaky and Roy
Squeaky and Roy are the new troublemaker members of the TikTok famous D’Amelio family. The pink bear and the violet penguin recently moved to the D’Amelio’s Hollywood mansion and they are having the time of their lives with Charli and Dixie. Squeaky and Roy are also TikTok dancers and they love eating candy. They play with toys and ride skateboards all day long but are definitely not fond of cleaning or organizing. Heidi and Marc D’Amelio are not very pleased with the new messy guests and are starting to impose new rules.
Mavrello Ballovic
Mavrello was born in 1932 and quickly became a basketball fan. He made a fortune with his rubber company Ballovic Rubber and decided to fly to Dallas to follow the american dream. And he really did, Mavrello co-founded the Dallas Mavericks in 1980.
His success led him to try multiple business ideas that were dismissed by the public. Mavrello couldn't stand rejection and isolated away in his bunker under the Maverick stadium. He got stuck there and just recently was able to escape. Mavrello has now returned to challenge Marc Cuban and take back control of his basketball team.
Bejby Blue
Bejby Blue is an artist from Slovakia. She is distinguishable for her blue short hair and her great street style. Bejby chose the blue butterfly as the animal that represents her in many videos. As an artist she is a singer, a pianist and even a violin player. Bejby loves to share images of the food she eats. Although she enjoys ice cream and coffee, Bejby buys organic food in her hometown’s farmers markets. Bejby also plays sports, she actively practices basketball and enjoys dance classes every once in a while.
