The news: YouTube is experimenting with AI avatars based on a small group of popular creators via Google’s “Portraits” feature, which allows fans to have conversations with AI versions of real-life creators.

• Users can ask personas of their favorite creators questions and participate in ongoing dialogue. The tool is designed to sound like the creator while mimicking a typical chatbot experience.
• Creators, meanwhile, gain access to what subjects their audiences are interested in to better refine their content in the future.
• The feature is only available to US users over 18, and some users may begin to see a “Talk to Creator’s Portrait” option on channel pages.

AI in the creator economy: AI is becoming increasingly embedded across the creator economy, and YouTube’s latest initiative underscores how rapidly these tools are spreading throughout the space. But consumer sentiment might not match the trend.

• Most US adults are unlikely to interact with content from AI-generated influencers. This sentiment is especially prevalent among Gen X and Baby Boomers (63%), but also among the majority of Gen Z and millennials (51%), per YouGov.
• Consumers are feeling increasingly negative about AI’s role in the creator economy, regardless of use case. Thirty-two percent of consumers see genAI as a negative disruptor in the creator economy in 2025, up from 18% in 2023, per Billion Dollar Boy.
• YouTube’s push could fail to connect with consumers who value influencer marketing for its sense of authenticity and trustworthiness. AI-generated creators, while based on real figures, undermine the human connection that makes influencer marketing work so well. Most consumers view AI influencers as “uncanny and authentically fake.”

The ad potential: Consumer sentiment on AI creators remains cautious, but advertisers are looking to AI interactions as a potential marketing opportunity. Giants like Meta are mining AI chatbot conversations to serve personalized ads, while services like Microsoft Copilot are seeing massive success with ads integrated into chatbot interfaces.

While YouTube’s newest experiment isn’t implementing ads yet, the move is still a play to connect with YouTube users and get them to spend more time within the YouTube ecosystem. More time on YouTube translates to more ad exposure—and given what other digital platforms are doing, AI creators could become a future surface for ads.

What advertisers should do: Advertisers should approach AI creators with cautious interest, closely monitoring how the format evolves as an ad opportunity while balancing emerging AI capabilities with consumers’ sensitivity to authenticity.

Consumers remain hesitant to accept AI influencers, though basing personas on real-life creators could ease some anxiety. Still, before ad opportunities become more common in this space, advertisers are best advised to monitor how consumer sentiment shifts as AI becomes widespread across the creator economy. For now, AI in the influencer ecosystem is best used for processes like content planning, ideation, and brand safety.