The star of Levi's new campaign looks like any other model . Her tousled hair hangs over her shouldersas she gazes into the camera with that far-off high-fashion stare. But look closer, and something starts to seem a little off. The shadow between her chin and neck looks muddled, like a bad attempt at using FaceTune's eraser effect to hide a double chin. Her French manicured fingernails appear scrubbed clean and uniform in a creepy real doll kind of way.

The next time you buy a flashy new outfit after browsing Instagram, or tap the heart button on a particularly compelling TikTok video, you might discover that the person who posted it isn't real--and you might not care at all. That is, if virtual influencers (and their creators) get their way. A virtual influencer is a digital personality that posts on social media to build an audience of passionate fans, just like a human influencer; at least, that's how it seems. In reality, a team of humans uses computer-generated imagery (CGI), motion capture, and marketing magic to give a digital avatar a voice, a life, and a brand. The result makes virtual influencers seem like, well, real people.

There, she posts pictures of herself in a biker shirt, posing in front of her gleaming red-and-blue Yamaha Telkor on dirt roads and hilltops and misty beaches. But one day, she accidentally posted a picture of her bike on Twitter that captured her reflection in the rear-view mirror. The reflection was of a middle-aged man–because the woman in the photo was actually a 50-year-old man named Soya who transformed his face using a machine-learning-powered face tune app. "No-one will read what a normal middle-aged man, taking care of his motorcycle and taking pictures outside, posts on his account," Soya told the Japanese TV program Getsuyou Kara Yofukashi. That said, happily, his fans responded mostly positively to his late-in-life, accidental gender reveal.

Synthetic humans are a thing of the future, and the latest project to come along in pursuit of that is Alethea AI, a startup that can create photorealistic AI-generated avatars from a single photo. The company is unveiling its AI Avatar Studio today. You can see what they did with my photo, with my permission, in the video embedded in this story. They made me sing the I See Fire song from The Hobbit film with Ed Sheeran's voice. The company created the avatar and lip-syncing within minutes.

Now that the majority of New York Fashion Week's runway shows have gone digital, designers are seeking to replicate the aura and grandeur of the fashion show outside of the catwalk's limitations. From Dior's live-streamed presentations, to Louis Vuitton's short films, to Loewe's FedEx-shipped "Show in a Box", high-fashion has demonstrated how collections can be shared with consumers in new, socially-distant ways. However, one of the main limitations of runway shows was the necessity of models -- and a lot of them. Real-time, in-person runways saw models walking out one after the other. With digital showings-- such as the pre-photographed Resort 2021 collections -- the necessity for more-than-a-couple-of-models is much lower.

Considering everything else we're seeing from AI, this was just a matter of time. An artificially intelligent robot has been cast as the lead actor in a $70 million movie being made by the same people behind the Oscar-nominated Loving Vincent. Filming with the robot called Erica has already begun in Japan and is expected to wrap up in Europe next year. "Actors involve their own life experiences in the role but Erica has no life experiences," said one of her creators. "We had to simulate her motions and emotions through one-on-one sessions, such as controlling the speed of her movements, talking through her feelings and coaching character development and body language."

There's an emerging technology that is starting to gain traction in the tech world. Already featured in most major media networks, the role of deepfake artificial intelligence and virtual influencer (VI) touches on a variety of legal and ethical concerns that the business community should take notice of. Deepfakes are videos manipulated by AI to overlay images of celebrities or public figures in order to deceive viewers into believing the content is authentic. Recently, deepfake videos of Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama and Boris Johnson have all emerged and gone viral. In the state of California, recent legislation has made it "illegal to create or distribute videos, images or audio of politicians doctored to resemble real footage within 60 days of an election," according to The Guardian.

Believe it or not, but AI influencers are actually a thing, and during 2018 this new and rather unexplored market experienced impressive growth. Chances are that you've heard about AI influencers before and are curious to learn more. Or perhaps this is the first time you've heard about the phenomenon and you're eager to learn more about AI influencers and digital models. Regardless, you have come to the right place, and on the page below we'll guide you through everything you need to know about AI influencers and the future of influencer marketing. The concept of AI influencers has actually been around since 2016 and in some cases even earlier than that.

The ongoing battle for consumer dollars and attention sees brands embracing new technologies. In the world of fashion, it has led to a new trend in deploying virtual models. One such model is Lil Miquela, the virtual Instagram influencer who started it all. She was first created by Trevor McFedries and Sara Decou as a "digital art project" in April 2016. She currently has 1.5 million Instagram followers and has already collaborated with brands like Prada.

Lil Miquela's 1.5 million followers watch her eat sherbet on the beach, visit her favorite art galleries, and hang out with other robot models. Lil Miquela is a digital influencer created using motion graphics -- something companies have long been capable of making. But even though she isn't truly an AI creation, her success has inspired venture capitalists like Betaworks to invest heavily in virtual creators and work with startups to progress the technology forward. The future of influencers, according to the general director of Betaworks' startup bootcamp, Danika Laszuk, is digital beings who actually are powered by AI. Betaworks' next startup camp will focus on what Laszuk calls "synthetic media" -- a combination of computer-generated imagery and AI capabilities.