Human Creators Using AI Get a Warmer Reception Than AI Influencers

DoubleVerify’s October 14 research gives brands a reason to keep a human creator in the picture when they add AI to production. In its consumer survey, 39% responded positively to human influencers making content with AI’s help, compared with 29% for influencers generated by AI.

That 10-percentage-point gap concerns two different creative decisions: helping a person make the work and replacing the person the audience sees. A marketing team evaluating both should give each its own test.

The 2026 Global Insights Report announcement draws on surveys of 22,000 consumers and 2,020 marketers worldwide, plus additional company data. It also reports 37% negative response to brands using AI-generated influencers. These are reported attitudes, so they don’t establish which version sells more products.

Mark Zagorski, the company’s chief executive officer, described the commercial pressure behind its research:

“Social has fundamentally changed how brands and consumers connect”

The narrower finding about creators gives that broad observation a practical use. An AI editing budget and an AI spokesperson budget buy different things, even if both appear under the same technology heading.

The person is part of what the brand buys

A human creator can have a history with a subject and an audience. An advertiser hiring that person is paying for access to that relationship as well as the resulting video. Replacing the face changes the offer people receive. Saving production time alone can’t show whether that change helps the campaign.

Dina El Hallak, Careem’s social media and influencer marketing senior manager, described the human creator’s advantage as:

“promoting trust and having a personality”

Those remarks came from a September 29 panel at Communicate AI in Dubai, reported on October 9. They predate this survey release. El Hallak also acknowledged AI’s potential to compete with creators as content generation improves. Their argument concerns the relationship audiences form with a person, rather than a claim that synthetic content can never work.

For a brand commissioning a product demonstration, that distinction can change the brief. Ask the creator to explain what they actually tried and keep that experience visible in the final edit. AI can help produce the asset without supplying a fictional experience for the person to endorse. That’s an editorial recommendation, not a campaign result measured in this study.

Skepticism can reach human influencers too

A separate Gartner survey released on September 22 complicates any easy celebration of human creators. Among 1,006 U.S. consumers surveyed in May and June, 35% said they relied on influencers less for shopping information because of AI’s emergence. Meanwhile, 43% said AI-generated content’s prevalence made them rely more on real people.

The findings suggest a useful question for a creator brief: what lets the audience recognize a real person’s knowledge or experience? A recognizable face can appear in a heavily scripted ad, too. Paying a human doesn’t automatically preserve the qualities that made their audience listen.

The two surveys use different populations and questions. Their percentages shouldn’t be combined into a single trust score. Neither establishes why a particular viewer likes a particular creator.

Our earlier coverage of AI product images examined concern about how products are represented. We also covered the gap between advertisers’ and audiences’ reactions to AI ads. This finding concerns who represents the product. Both belong in the content and brand discussion, but each calls for a different creative test.

Keep the cost saving separate from the audience response

The strongest reason to consider a synthetic influencer remains worth testing: a brand might find a useful character or format that its audience enjoys. DoubleVerify’s 29% positive response leaves room for that possibility. The aggregate preference can’t settle an individual campaign’s choice.

The announcement doesn’t disclose fieldwork dates, detailed recruitment methods, or question wording. It also doesn’t provide a controlled comparison of purchase behavior. DoubleVerify sells media measurement and optimization, so it has a commercial interest in campaigns requiring better evaluation. The findings support a testable distinction, with limits on the verdict.

For the next creator pilot, keep the product offer and audience comparable while testing the creative approaches. Record production cost separately from the campaign’s response. Give the human creator room to explain a real experience, and make any synthetic persona clear to viewers.

A small B2B team can apply the same question to an employee-led demonstration: does the finished piece retain the employee’s firsthand explanation? That check is useful even without an influencer budget.

Approve the use of AI in production and the choice of spokesperson as separate decisions.