Creators are more and more turning to agentic AI to streamline communication with followers — saving money and time — however elevating new questions for manufacturers and influencer entrepreneurs.
The time period “agentic AI” refers to synthetic intelligence instruments that may autonomously pursue objectives, take actions and make selections with out requiring fixed human enter. In contrast to prompt-based AI instruments like ChatGPT, which depend on direct, step-by-step enter from customers, agentic AI methods can pursue objectives autonomously throughout a number of steps — typically mimicking the behaviors or decision-making patterns of particular people.
Agentic AI is without doubt one of the tech trade’s buzzwords du jour, with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman writing in January that he anticipated AI brokers would be a part of the workforce and “materially change the output of corporations” in 2025. Now, content material creators are getting in on the motion through the use of AI brokers to interact with their followers.
The important thing numbers
- Agentic AI is gaining floor throughout a spread of industries and enterprise makes use of: 33 p.c of enterprise software program functions will incorporate AI brokers by 2028, per an October 2024 Gartner report — up from 1 p.c in 2024.
- Round two-thirds of all companies are exploring agentic AI, based on analysis by Boston Consulting Group final 12 months.
- Shopper confidence in agentic AI is combined. A January 2025 examine by Qualtrics discovered that shopper consolation with utilizing AI to finish commonplace actions had decreased by 10.5 p.c year-over-year, with solely 26 p.c of shoppers saying they trusted organizations to make use of AI responsibly.
Essentially the most seen method that creators are utilizing agentic AI is to reply to feedback and direct messages from followers on social media. In some methods, this use case is a no brainer: creators are flooded with messages every day and infrequently have time to reply. Agentic AI can be utilized to actively monitor incoming engagement (DMs, feedback) and resolve when and how one can reply with customized replies — providing followers a way of connection they won’t in any other case get.
Creators Elizabeth Gasiba, Paige Piskin and Marcella Cortland advised Digiday they’re experimenting with utilizing AI brokers on this method, importing their very own writing and feedback to instruments akin to Soopra to assist these brokers communicate of their voices. Piskin stated she toggles her AI assistant on and off relying on visitors and the way a lot assist she wants partaking — and that her AI agent is clearly labeled as such to anybody who interacts with it.
“With out these instruments, I actually was at a bottleneck just a few years in the past and struggled to maintain up with content material creation whereas additionally producing shopper work — I’d go months with out posting something on my private pages,” she stated. “Now I’ve so many instruments and inventive pipelines, I can produce extra content material for my platform in addition to for purchasers with out getting burned out.”
Educated to imitate a creator’s tone and character
Creators’ AI brokers are extra difficult creatures than the chatbots which have turn into commonplace throughout the net up to now 12 months. As an alternative of merely offering correct, grammatically appropriate responses, the AI brokers utilized by creators must be skilled to precisely mimic a creator’s tone and character.
“I try this by making a every day journal — these are my ideas right now, and that educates my persona,” stated Cortland, a author and movie producer. “I additionally host movie festivals and do occasional interviews with individuals, and I like including content material that I’ve achieved earlier than, so my digital twin understands who I’m.”
Though most creators who’re utilizing agentic AI to work together with their followers are up entrance about this reality, Gasiba stated that she believed her AI brokers had “humanized” her on-line presence by giving her followers extra of an opportunity to interact together with her character, no matter whether or not they did so by way of AI. Earlier than utilizing Soopra to construct an AI persona, she had repeatedly gone by way of her feedback to sort out private responses.
“Though they comprehend it’s not me typing in actual time, the responses nonetheless really feel like me,” she stated. “I’ve had individuals say issues like, ‘Wait, this sounds similar to you!’ — which is strictly the aim. The vibe, the tone, the little expressions — all of it matches how I discuss.”
Advertisers involved AI can ‘misrepresent’ influencers
Creators’ embrace of agentic AI might put some advertisers on the again foot. As generative AI expertise goes mainstream, manufacturers are more and more including contract clauses that require influencer content material to be made by human creators — not AI. Whereas social media interactions will not be typically specified inside contract language, advertisers have historically thought-about them as half of a creator’s worth. Which means creators who use AI brokers to handle engagement might danger making themselves much less interesting to sponsors.
“I’ve been stunned by what number of advertisers and purchasers, when they’re chasing for efficiencies — and AI is the simplest lever for that — are writing in, ‘we don’t want AI in use by way of the inventive course of,’ and that applies to influencers as effectively,” stated Dentsu Artistic UK CEO Jessica Tamsedge. “And that’s a difficulty of brand name suitability in sure environments, inasmuch as how AI can increase, and barely misrepresent, influencers on this house.”
By permitting AI brokers to work together with their followers, creators are inherently giving up some measure of management over the dialog, regardless of how effectively the chatbot may be skilled. If a commenter leads a chatbot down the unsuitable path, it might create moral or authorized issues for each creators and the manufacturers that sponsor them.
“In an period the place children are notably vulnerable to social media affect, in the event that they maintain interacting with the feedback, and that digital robotic retains responding, there could be a fall-off level the place the solutions would start to stray, even with agentic AI,” stated Allison Harbin, an AI analyst and ethicist. “After just a few turns of dialog, the robotic’s solutions get additional and additional away from the unique matter — and that’s the place you see the chance are available.”
Gasiba, Piskin and Cortland advised Digiday that they aren’t utilizing AI brokers to interact with followers below branded content material — simply regular posts. Model suitability points however, Piskin and Gasiba stated that their followers had been having fun with their interactions with their digital twins, each briefly exchanges and longer conversations. Gasiba stated that having longer interactions with followers would assist improve her engagement numbers and make her social presence extra interesting to potential sponsors.
“That type of engagement completely catches the eye of manufacturers,” she stated. “They like to see lively, two-way conversations and real interplay. So it’s not simply in regards to the numbers — it’s in regards to the high quality of the connection I’ve with my viewers. That authenticity makes every part else circulate — model offers included.”
