It was once just a trend, but now influencer marketing is a billion-dollar industry, expected to grow to over 30 billion dollars by 2027. With the rise of AI in all aspects of social media, it’s no surprise that agencies and brands are implementing it into influencer marketing, which means huge change is on the horizon.
The question is no longer whether companies will be using AI, but instead, how will they be using it effectively.
According to a report from HypeAuditor, 70.6% of marketers believe AI can outperform humans in key marketing tasks, and almost 60% worry it could replace their own roles.
Most social media platforms are using AI to create content in text, images, and videos, which is changing the course of content creation and user interaction on their apps.
For example, TikTok’s Symphony Creative Studio now lets influencers and brands create AI-driven, trend-aligned videos - making top-quality production accessible.
YouTube also added an auto-dubbing feature in 2024 which covered hundreds of thousands of channels, and enabled automatic translation into multiple languages.
So, how can AI benefit influencer marketing?
Speaking to Daria Belova and Ksenia Eremina from HypeFactory influencer marketing agency, it seems the use of AI in influencer marketing is only increasing.
“Finding the right influencer manually takes too much time and AI handles the analytical part, allowing the creator and their team to focus more on creativity, creative strategies, trend analysing and researchers,” Eremina explained.
“We also use AI to study industry and make research about the state of influencer marketing within any field.”
Brands, it’s vital to be transparent with your audience
In the constantly evolving world of AI online, Belova stressed the importance of being transparent about exactly how it’s being used.
“Transparency is something which is extremely important for the industry and I don’t think that’s the case now, especially for the clients who work a lot with influencers,” she explained.
Belova noted that decisions are often made about influencers themselves, but instead companies should be focusing on the audience that they bring in. Using AI to filter audiences has helped improve influencer/brand compatibility but also highlighted which influencers have large bot followings.
“AI helps to analyse extensive amounts of data like what the interests of the audience are on each market, how products fit into those interests, and how [brands] should enter the market.”
Influencers are very efficient at using AI for the right reasons
It seems that influencers are using AI to make content creation easier, but aren’t cutting corners when it comes to creativity.
“Influencers aren’t using AI to produce creative ideas because they think, and I rightfully think that they can lose their connection with the audience if they automate something,” Belova explained. “They use it with pictures and different fonts which represent their videos to test what works better, but not the core content.”
What are the challenges facing AI influencer marketing at the moment?
Some of the challenges facing AI influencer marketing are actually less about the marketing itself and more about the stigma around it.
“The biggest challenge is not about AI itself but about the fact that sometimes marketers are not ready to experiment with the new categories. Especially clients with less experience in influencer marketing who have a belief that they need to work only with a specific niche in terms of the content or topic.”
Forgetting that the audience may have a variety of interests can put clients at a huge disadvantage, but by using AI to match clients with influencers who have compatible audiences, brands will have a bigger reach.
The future of AI influencer marketing is growing globally
AI influencer marketing has a very big future ahead. Belova first noted that more platforms will be covered by AI analytics with rising competition.
She also considered that smaller local platforms would start implementing AI to help appeal to a global audience. No “big budget” will be needed to garner worldwide engagement. Countries like South Korea and Japan use many smaller platforms in addition to bigger apps like TikTok, X, and Instagram.
“The biggest potential is about breaking these walls between countries so that marketing, brands and businesses can truly be global.
“With influencer marketing, AI data gives an entry point to new countries where you can analyse the data, research the markets using AI, and analyse what people are talking about. These barriers then become lower and that’s really great.”
There’s a lot to be excited about in the future of AI influencer marketing!
