Earlier this year, Modern Retail’s sibling publication Digiday reported that advertisers are embracing AI for social media and retail media marketing. However, advertisers are slower to adopt AI for influencer and CTV marketing. This is according to a Modern Retail+ Research survey of more than 100 marketing professionals in first-quarter 2026.Only one quarter of marketers (25%) said they use AI for their influencer marketing work, according to the survey.
One possibility for that reluctance is consumer demand for authenticity from influencers. According to an April 2025 study by the World Federation of Advertisers, 96% of brands that have no plans to work with virtual influencers cite consumer trust issues as their reasons for caution.
Unlike human influencers, virtual influencers are fully AI-generated avatars whose appearance, voice and actions are fine-tuned by an individual or team of individuals behind the scenes, such as virtual influencer Mia Zel who went viral with a Wimbledon-inspired post last year.
Among the 25% of marketers who said they are using AI in their work with influencers, the majority (75%) said they use AI to analyze data. More than half said they use AI to create content (63%) and for influencer outreach (56%).
