Ranveer Allahbadia, the podcaster and national award-winning creator got a reality check straight from India’s Supreme Court. The country’s top judges didn’t mince words, calling his recent statement on controversy-laden YouTube India’s Got Latent downright “filthy” and suggesting there’s “something very dirty in his mind.”
The fallout? Brands and guests bolted. Fans unfollowed. Top influencers and creators lawyered-up. And just like that, India’s digital influencer scene finds itself at a crossroads: When does edgy content cross the line, and who gets to decide?
Enter: The Controversy-Free Virtual Influencer
While human influencers are busy navigating scandals, AI-generated personalities are quietly taking over. Virtual influencers — CGI-powered digital darlings — don’t get caught in legal trouble, don’t demand pay raises, and definitely don’t tweet something regrettable at 3 a.m.
Globally, Lil Miquela set the gold standard, scoring partnerships with brands like Prada and Calvin Klein. Closer to home, India’s very own Kyra is already flexing in ads for Titan Eye+ and Amazon. Asia’s first virtual human, Imma, has inked deals with Vivo and Dior. And now, brands are eyeing more of these digital beings to also perhaps avoid PR nightmares like Allahbadia’s.
Abhishek Razadan of Avtr Meta Labs, the brains behind “Naina avtr” and “Virat avtr,” says virtual influencers are tailor-made for brand messaging — literally. Unlike their human counterparts, they’ll never go off-script. Naina avtr already boasts 425K Instagram followers, while Virat avtr trails behind with 92.2K.
And this trend isn’t slowing down. Content creators like Varun Mayya are already using AI avatars to boost productivity — writing scripts while their digital doubles handle the performance.
The Business of Bots
Rasshi Agarwal, founder of Megalodon, predicts that within a year, most top-tier creators will have AI avatars doing the talking for them. Brands are hyped, seeing AI influencers as a cost-effective, controversy-free alternative to unpredictable humans.
And the economics? Converting a real person into an avatar is a modest Rs3,000–Rs4,000. Building a high-end virtual influencer from scratch? A cool Rs10–Rs12 lakh. But the return on investment is solid: while a traditional influencer might charge Rs5–10 lakh per campaign, a virtual influencer can deliver slick, studio-quality ads for just Rs50,000.
“The trust in avatars will skyrocket in the next six to twelve months,” says Rasshi. “No retakes, no travel costs — just one click, and you have a campaign ready to roll.”
The AI Influencer Dilemma
Sounds perfect, right? Well, not so fast.
Sahil Chopra, CEO of iCubesWire, argues that AI influencers lack the one thing that makes humans irreplaceable: authenticity. “People crave real, human connections,” he says. “A CGI-generated personality can never fully replicate that.”
And then there’s creativity — or the lack of it. “Virtual influencers churn out high-quality content at high speed,” says Sreeram Reddy Vanga of Kofluence. “But can they capture the raw, unpredictable magic of a human creator? Not yet.”
For now, AI influencers have limitations — they struggle with dynamic group interactions and tend to excel in glossy, aspirational campaigns rather than raw, personal storytelling. But experts agree: give it two years, and brands may no longer be able to ignore them.
The bigger question? Will audiences truly connect with a personality that doesn’t breathe, feel, or mess up once in a while? Because at the end of the day, perfection might just be the biggest turn-off of all.