Are you being influenced? : The effect of human, virtual and AI influencers on purchase intention through Instagram

Virtual influencers are getting more popular on a daily basis while AI influencers might be in the making. These computer-generated influencers pose a threat to human influencers, since they can take over their jobs.This study examines the influence of human, virtual and AI influencers on purchase intention through in-feed or story content on Instagram. An online survey was created to conduct the 3 (influencer type: human vs virtual vs AI) by 2 (content type: in-feed vs story) experimental between subject’s design. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the six manipulations where they had to answer questions about social presence, social media engagement, source credibility and purchase intention based on manipulated Instagram accounts and posts. This research provides evidence that it does not matter which type of influencer is being used, all three have the same effect on the level of purchase intention of Instagram users. It does not matter which type of content is used to promote products, both in-feed posts and story posts show no difference in their effect on the purchase intention.