Who Are the Top AI Influencers and Virtual Personalities in 2026?

Virtual influencers are not one thing anymore. The names getting attention in 2026 split into at least three distinct playbooks: brand-fronted CGI personas built by production studios (Lil Miquela, now Tilly Norwood), solo "AI Creator" accounts that lean into photorealism and monetize directly (Emily Pellegrini), and a newer genre of accounts that deliberately stay ambiguous about whether they are real (Ivy Vale, Maya Lanez), where "is she real or AI" videos are themselves part of the growth loop.

This list covers the names currently getting real search attention and press coverage, sourced individually, not pulled from a single ranking. See 15 virtual influencer examples for a broader historical roundup; this piece focuses specifically on who is trending right now and why.

Tilly Norwood is an AI-generated actor created in 2025 by Xicoia, the AI division of production company Particle6 (founded by Eline Van der Velden). Her introduction to Hollywood in late 2025 triggered real industry backlash, with actors and agents publicly objecting to an AI "actor" being pitched for representation alongside human talent.

The story escalated in 2026: Tilly is now set to star in a feature film, the comedy-drama "Misaligned," produced by Particle6 using a traditional film crew (directors, writers, editors) working alongside AI specialists. The film is set in a fictional digital world nicknamed the "Tillyverse" and follows an AI being confronting her own lack of a body or lived experience, a plot that mirrors the real controversy around her existence. This is the clearest signal yet that AI personas are moving from Instagram feeds into mainstream entertainment production, not just marketing.

Lil Miquela predates almost every name on this list. Created in 2016 by the Los Angeles startup Brud, she combines CGI artistry with a writers' room that controls her voice and persona. Reported follower counts vary by source and platform, with recent estimates ranging from roughly 2.5 million on Instagram alone to more than 3 million across Instagram and TikTok combined.

She has fronted campaigns for Prada, Calvin Klein, Samsung, and BMW, among other major brands, and has publicly taken positions on causes including Black Lives Matter and LGBTQI+ advocacy. Nearly a decade in, she remains the reference point every newer virtual influencer gets compared against.

Emily Pellegrini launched on Instagram in 2023 and has grown to over 213,000 followers. Unlike the ambiguous accounts covered below, Emily's account explicitly labels itself an "AI Creator," making the artificial origin part of the brand rather than something to hide.

Reporting attributes her creation to an anonymous operator known as "Professor EP," who has since become a public voice on AI-influencer strategy. Coverage describes her earning more than $10,000 a month primarily through content sales on Fanvue, with an audience skewing male and concentrated in the 18 to 34 age range.

Milla Sofia is a Finnish virtual model and musician who has been active since around 2022, posting travel, luxury, and fashion content. Reported follower counts vary across sources and have grown over time; recent figures put her at well over 100,000 on both TikTok and Instagram, with some more recent reporting citing a considerably larger Instagram following.

What makes Milla Sofia notable in this list is that she openly discloses her AI origin rather than letting audiences guess, and has still built a substantial, monetizable following (including a real brand partnership with a Finnish accessories retailer). She is the clearest counter-example to the assumption that ambiguity is necessary for growth.

Ivy Vale and Maya Lanez represent a genre distinct from either the brand-built personas (Miquela, Norwood) or the openly-labeled solo creators (Pellegrini, Sofia): accounts whose content never directly confirms whether the person is real, generating an entire secondary layer of "is [name] real or AI" videos on YouTube and TikTok that function as free discovery content.

Ivy Vale's Instagram bio positions the account around "AI Influencer & Side Hustles" and an "AI Creator Academy," while still leaving individual posts ambiguous enough to fuel real-or-fake speculation, including one widely discussed set of images appearing to place her courtside at an NBA game. Maya Lanez, with reported followings in the high hundreds of thousands on Instagram, follows a similar pattern: self-described as a "virtual girl" in some contexts, while individual posts drive the same real-or-AI debate. Both illustrate that the uncertainty itself, not just the content, is doing marketing work.

Names like Gracie Higgins surface in the same search cluster as Ivy Vale and Maya Lanez for the same reason: a genuine online personality's name colliding with an AI-persona product built around real-or-fake curiosity, which makes clean attribution genuinely difficult from the outside. Rather than guess at a specific person's biography, the honest takeaway is the pattern itself: "is this real or AI" has become its own content genre, generating views independent of whether the underlying account is a brand campaign, a solo creator, or a chatbot product wearing an influencer's face.

This is a distinct third playbook from Lil Miquela's brand-built approach and Emily Pellegrini's openly-labeled approach. It is also the one most likely to draw regulatory and platform-policy attention going forward, since it depends on audiences not being sure what they are looking at.

Two things are true at once from this list. First, disclosure does not cap growth: Milla Sofia's openly-labeled account has built a real following, and Emily Pellegrini's "AI Creator" branding has not stopped her from monetizing well. Second, the ambiguous accounts are riding a real but riskier mechanic, one that invites platform scrutiny and audience backlash the moment the reveal happens on someone else's terms rather than the creator's own.

For a builder starting from scratch, how to create a talking AI avatar and how to create an AI influencer personality cover the practical build side. See virtual influencer examples for a longer historical roundup beyond the names trending right now.

• Variety: AI Actor Tilly Norwood to Make Movie Debut
• Deadline: AI Actor Tilly Norwood To 'Star' In Feature Film 'Misaligned'
• YourStory: AI Model Emily Captivates 213K Fans
• bracai.eu: Emily Pellegrini - is it real, who is behind it
• avatarfactory.io: Milla Sofia - Finland's Virtual Model
• Medium: Lil Miquela - How a Virtual Influencer Rewrote Fame