It’s time for the AI Influencer Awards!

First, we had the AI beauty pageants, followed by AI music competitions, and now we’re stepping into the realm of AI Personality of the Year. This award seems like a natural evolution in the AI influencer scene, striving for credibility amidst a flood of low-quality content and opportunists, as it transitions from a quirky novelty to a serious, profitable industry.

Launching on Monday and running for a month, this contest is a collaboration between a generative AI studio and an AI-driven creator platform, with support from a voice technology company. The goal is to “celebrate the creative talent behind AI Influencers” and acknowledge their increasing impact in both commercial and cultural spaces.

Participants will vie for a prize pool of $90,000, which will be divided among an overall champion and winners in categories like fitness, lifestyle, comedy, music and dance, and fictional characters from cartoons, anime, or fantasy. The winners will be honored at a May event dubbed the “Oscars for AI personalities.”

To enter, creators must develop their AI influencer on the designated platform and submit their work online. They’ll need to provide social media handles from platforms like TikTok, X, YouTube, and Instagram, along with the backstory of their character, their motivations for creating it, and any brand collaborations.

Judging the entries will be a panel that includes a 13-time Emmy-winning comedy writer, the creators behind a popular Spanish AI model, and a rapper known for his AI-generated gospel persona. Contestants will be evaluated based on four main criteria: quality, social influence, brand appeal, and the inspiration behind their avatar. Specific judging points include consistent engagement with followers, maintaining a cohesive look across social media, accurate details like having the correct number of fingers, and presenting an authentic narrative.

The contest welcomes both seasoned creators and newcomers, but existing AI influencers must still submit work created on the platform. Interestingly, participants are not required to reveal their identities. The head of brand at the creator platform noted that if someone prefers to remain out of the spotlight, that’s perfectly acceptable. The focus is on celebrating the work itself.

However, the option for anonymity raises questions about authenticity, especially in a space filled with fictional characters and constructed personas. This same anonymity has allowed some questionable figures to thrive without accountability.

In a follow-up email, a representative clarified that while personal details are necessary for entry, any offensive AI influencers or content would be disqualified from the competition.

There are also ongoing concerns regarding originality and whether AI-generated content might be appropriating from real creators, as well as the potential for these tools to perpetuate existing biases. The organizer has faced criticism in the past for similar issues, with one columnist describing a previous beauty pageant as reinforcing toxic beauty standards.

Despite these challenges, the brand representative believes that creators inevitably infuse their own essence into the AI characters they develop. He encouraged creators to embrace this aspect, suggesting that it aligns well with the influencer economy: a blend of reality and synthetic authenticity that the internet is already familiar with.