Deepfakes Are Undermining Trust in Influencer Marketing; AI Is Using Creators’ Faces in Ads Without Their Consent

A new threat is growing across the influencer marketing industry. As artificial intelligence advances, creating fake images and videos of well-known creators and influencers has become easier than ever, sometimes making it difficult for followers to distinguish authentic content from AI-generated or manipulated material.

A recent report by The Guardian highlights the experience of Emily Schuman, a well-known lifestyle creator with more than 500,000 followers on Instagram.

Schuman first discovered a sponsored advertisement using her image in a way that made it appear as though she was promoting a product related to GLP-1. In reality, she had no connection to the company or the advertisement and had never agreed to promote the product.

The problem did not stop there. Other manipulated images and videos of Schuman later appeared in promotions for a beauty brand and a blood-testing company, even though she had not endorsed those products or services.

But the issue goes far beyond simply stealing an influencer’s image.

Influencer marketing is fundamentally built on trust. When followers trust a creator and see that person recommending a product, that relationship can directly influence their purchasing decisions.

This is where deepfakes pose a serious threat.

If AI can use an influencer’s face and likeness to make it appear that they are promoting a product, consumers may no longer be able to easily determine whether an endorsement is genuine or fake.

And the damage does not affect creators alone. It can also weaken consumer trust in brands and in influencer marketing as a whole.

Fighting the problem is not easy for creators either. The Guardian reports that some creators are forced to report fake posts and advertisements, request their removal, and sometimes consider legal action. Yet even after one fraudulent ad is removed, another version can appear from a different account.

There is also a reason influencers are particularly attractive targets for deepfakes. Much of their digital lives already exists online in the form of photographs and videos. This enormous amount of visual material can make it easier to create convincing fake versions of them.

For brands, this is an important warning as well. In the future, simply choosing the right influencer may not be enough. Brands may increasingly need to demonstrate that a creator partnership is authentic and that the creator has genuinely consented to the use of their image and identity in an advertising campaign.

Deepfakes, therefore, are no longer just a technological problem. They are increasingly becoming a crisis of trust in marketing.

If consumers can no longer be certain whether an influencer genuinely recommended a product or whether AI is effectively speaking on that person’s behalf, one of the most important foundations of influencer marketing comes into question.

That leaves marketers with a crucial question: In the age of deepfakes, how can consumers know that the person they see in an advertisement is actually the real person?