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How Brands, Agencies and Platforms are rewriting the playbook with AI for scale? 3 Experts answer your burning question.

Like what you read? Here’s more like it!

“AI is definitely a hot topic at the moment.”

These were the opening words of Mikhail Hanney in the panel  with Clare Dobson and Matthew Bradley. This was one of the fresh, insightful conversations of the Primetag event “AI: Hype or Reality? The future of Creator Marketing,” an exclusive event for handpicked guests and industry leaders.

 Where do you think you've seen AI deliver the most sort of tangible efficiencies?

 It's a lot in terms of creating assets at scale and optimization. I think what's really interesting now is being able to break language barriers. I think that with localization you've got an ability to not only create content in different languages but in the same tone of voice as the original person. I think that that’s really exciting as someone who loves languages. (At the same time)  it's a bit terrifying though because I think it'll stop people learning languages.

 Because I work on global clients, I see quite a lot of what's coming over from APAC (Asia-Pacific) and what we're seeing there is digital versions of influencers for Tik Tok shop. It means that they never sleep. The efficiency they're able to find means that they're able to drive a lot more revenue for themselves as well as the brands that they're working with. It's a lot more kind of accepted over there if it's a virtual version of an influencer. The audience doesn't mind, they're still purchasing.

 I manage a professional badminton player from Denmark and the thing that I really struggle with is preserving her creative aspect without asking her to translate every time. We're trying to figure out a way to create two or three assets across different languages. We're still a little bit behind on how we collaborate with those brands or agencies in other countries, but that's a really big area that I'm trying to focus on. How can I speed up this process internally because I manage 15 athletes, which is a lot. For me that's a really big focal point and I think something where we can improve and hopefully win as well.

 Where do you think AI fails and isn’t replacing humans yet?

 We are still finding that in some western languages when you start to get a little bit more nuanced, you do start to lose both the accuracy and the authenticity of what's coming through. That colloquialism and that ability to tap into zeitgeist, things like slang, but also when you're working with brands where there's specific claims that you need to, you know, have accuracy on? Sometimes it's hard for a native speaker to be able to translate that. I'm sure if you give it three months, everything will be flawless.

 The negative side of [digital, always-on influencers]  is that you can lose the boundaries, it’s easy to oversaturate the audience with the need to just drive as much revenue as possible. How do we find an effective balance that doesn't feel so much in your face? I think we’re seeing that a lot on Tik Tok shop live streams: oversaturation from a commercial perspective.

 How can technology be used to increase productivity while retaining your authenticity?

 Authenticity is a really interesting topic and it seems to be the buzzword that's coming alongside AI at the moment. We’re having a lot of conversations about it and I think we're not necessarily achieving authenticity with the influencer marketing that we're doing at the moment. Humans aren't getting authenticity right. I think that in some instances there's AI that is achieving authenticity more because actually it's getting what people want, it's learning from what people want, and big brands are struggling to learn as quickly as AI can.  This is where hopefully there [will be jobs in the future like] chief authenticity officer for AI. People that are there making sure that [content] is connecting with people.

 I came across this video the other day, where they had taken the image of an influencer and created a version of her answering a podcast and used it as an advert. It wasn't her but if you watch it, it looks like her.  She reported it and Meta said “no, it doesn't go against our guidelines.” So we're developing these tools but not really thinking about the repercussions for actual human influencers.

 Working with athletes they do bring authenticity but more importantly credibility as well. Athletes I manage do have quite hardcore fans, who want to know what boots they are wearing, what nutrition products they have, what car they drive.

 I think credibility is a really good word because I think if a virtual influencer is selling a computer to me and it's rattling off the RAM or something, okay fine, facts are facts. But then if it's a virtual influencer that's recommending skin care for me and they don't have skin that's problematic.

 Nintendo's been under fire recently. They're refusing that they have used AI to generate the billboards in the new Mario Kart game. People are passionate about it in the gaming community, they care about the jobs in that industry. But there's a lot of instances now where there are certain places where people want things to be real and authentic and others that don't.

 Coca-Cola was a great example. The Christmas ad, did you see the blow up on LinkedIn, everyone being like "What have you done?" If you go on social? No one cared. Everybody in the industry is saying “look at the inconsistency”and I was like “no one cares”.  They’re  not going to stop selling coke, are they?

 is the Global Platform & Influencer Lead at Wavemaker WPPMedia. Someone who knows a lot about the actual state of influencer marketing - and even more about its future.

 is a Managing Director at Pulse Advertising. They make advertising meaningful by giving people a sense of belonging.

 is the  founder of TAG Management, a female-focused athlete agency  representing England rugby players, cricketers and Olympians.

Want to know more about Universe?

Virtual Influencers aren’t out there in the far future. They’re here. Today.

“I’m hoping to maybe positively provoke your curiosity and inspire you or maybe even scare you slightly”

 said Clare in the Primetag event in London “The Future of Creative Marketing”. 

she calls it - probably an understatement. The headlines, the tweets, the linkedin posts we see are scary, verging on the apocalyptical. They’re coming to take our jobs! They're going to replace our human models! 

She explains that, to older audiences, older marketing people and older influencers, it is natural that people feel they have a big barrier to overcome.

7 facts and figures about the Virtual Influencer Market:

We think of virtual influencers as something in the far future, something out of a Sci Fi movie but to those paying attention, it’s been happening already for the past few years.

At the end of the day, Clare says, there are humans  at the heart of Virtual Influencing, too.  It’s humans with their creativity that make these characters, and their stories. And it’s that human connection that’s so fundamental for Virtual Influencers to be so engaging for the younger generations.

“it’s time to rethink the role of the virtual influencer”

For her, it would be really limiting our capabilities if we were to think of virtual influencers in the same way as we think of (human) influencers.

“It’s not about whether we engage, but how creative we can get”

Clare Dobson talk about the rise of virtual influencers

Clare Dobson and the rise of Virtual Influencers

“Put your hand up if you have knowingly interacted with a virtual influencer"

,Clare Dobson asked the audience. A few hands went up.  

“Put your hands up if you not knowingly interacted with a virtual influencer?” 

“Is anyone following a virtual influencer right now?”

Clare is the global platform and influencer lead at Wavemaker. Her job is really to work with top global clients helping them reach audiences on global platforms with a particular focus in influencer marketing.  She’s there, basically, to help them push the boundaries, to move  forward and think about innovating all the time.

And that’s why she was here too, on this morning of the 14th of May in the Lumiére London underwood. She was delivering the keynote in front of the managers of household brands, great cutting-edge agencies and content creators we love.

This was the kick off to “AI: Hype or Reality ? The future of Creator Marketing” an exclusive event where handpicked guests gathered for some honest, unfiltered conversation, and insightful talks.

Reality: the Virtual Influencer is already here.

Clare Dobson’s keynote mindboggling facts like 35% of respondents to one US survey purchased a product recommended to them by a Virtual  Influencer

. Over the last five years, Virtual Influencers have closed deals with Ikea Japan, been signed up by talent agency CAA and even played Coachella! 

For brands, the fact that these influencers don’t age, don’t sleep and (perhaps more importantly) don’t have scandals is a powerful plus. 

For consumers in Gen Z and Gen Alpha, they provide entertainment, company and community. These young people are increasingly online, plugged in 24/7: 

1 in every 2 of them would trust an influencer as much as they trust their parents.

Clare frames it in a way that makes it easier for us olds to understand:

For a kid born into this generation, the prospect of them bumping into Binky Felstead is just as likely as bumping into DJ Angelbaby. So why should they consider them all that different?

As the Virtual Influencer market blossoms and as these young people start to get buying power, it will be worth A LOT. By 2030, it will already be worth around 111 billion. 

Hype: the basic infrastructure of Influencer marketing means it’s unscalable.

, Influencer Marketing was hard to scale. We’ve written about it 

TL;DR: a lot of other Marketing Channels you can put more money in, gain more eyeballs. Almost without having to increase your team. WIth influencer marketing, growth has been very hampered by the fact that to start scaling up investment in Creators, you’ve always had to hire A LOT of people - so we’ve seen things like:

Enter Universe. AI agents like this will be shifting the equation—not by replacing humans

, but by multiplying their output. The critical insight that most miss is that any new technology must adapt to human workflows, not the other way around. Which is why Universe works in your WhatsApp or Company slack.

Hype: Some Creators are rushing to use AI in the fear of becoming outdated. Others are terrified they will be replaced.

The real threat isn't AI replacing creators, but having revenue stolen by deepfakes, algorithms deciding who gets discovered, and losing hours to creator briefs that can be shortened to minutes with the aid of AI tools. 

The strategic move isn't choosing sides. 

It's understanding that AI is a leverage multiplier, not an identity replacer. 

The creators who win will treat AI like any other tool. 

“I absolutely love AI. It’s literally my lifeline at the moment. Not to take the creativity from myself, but to spark some ideas. But I’ll always give it my touch and make it more me.”

Ellie Boatman, professional rugby player, says she uses AI to get the boring but necessary parts of the work out of the way fast: 

“It’s more about how productive it makes me in terms of caption automating and things like that.”

She says: As someone who trains full-time, has four hours of training to do, then obviously finding ways to make things as efficient as possible are important.

“I’ve grown my audience and my brand in women’s rugby in a very raw way, and so fans want to see me on my instagram and TikTok pages be very human”

This is the final insight we’ll leave you with: the more artificial the space becomes, the more authenticity will matter.

London’s Top Minds in influencing got together. These are their Top 3 takeaways:

In influencer marketing, the hardest part isn’t finding profiles with good reach. It’s not even matching audience data or creative style with your brief. The real challenge—the one that matters most—is answering a single question:

Does it really make sense for this person to represent your brand?

Credibility isn’t built in a spreadsheet or during a photo shoot. It’s built through coherence, and validating that takes more than aesthetics, engagement, or demographics.

The case: a gluten-free brand and the search for real alignment

A food brand was planning a campaign focused on gluten-free products.

They had a clear idea of their audience, the tone, and a well-filtered list of creators who, on paper, looked perfect: right sociodemographics, solid metrics, brand-aligned aesthetics, and active communities.

But before activating anyone, the team asked the one question that really mattered:

Does this creator truly represent what we stand for?

That’s where Universe came in. Through a simple prompt to the assistant, they started with the basics:

“Has this creator mentioned any competitors in the past few months?”

In seconds, Universe delivered not just a yes or no, but how many times, when, and in what format—posts, Stories, Reels. Even expired content, like Stories, was taken into account.

Universe doesn’t just show you data—it interprets it.

It highlights whether the mentions were one-off or part of a sustained relationship. That insight alone helped the brand eliminate creators who, on paper, seemed like a good fit.

No ties to competitors? Then, are they relevant?

Some creators had no visible connection to competitors. But that wasn’t enough.

The next question was all about relevancy. Do they talk about the topic?:

Do they really talk about gluten? Are they credible on the topic? Does it appear in their content as a personal concern or just a passing reference?

Universe analyzed their recent content and identified how often “gluten” appeared, in what context, and how it was framed—informative, casual, personal, or superficial.

had a genuine, ongoing relationship with the topic

. Not because a brand asked them to talk about it, but because it’s part of their life and voice.

And after Relevancy, you could keep asking more and more questions until you cleared all doubts. For example, are you worried about their Resonance as well? Just ask universe for an evaluation of how well the audience reacts to, and engages with, when influencers talk about the topic!

From someone who fits to someone who represents

With all that insight, the brand made a confident choice.

They didn’t just go with metrics or look and feel. They picked a creator who had already been speaking—authentically—about gluten-free living.

The result wasn’t just a credible campaign. It was a coherent one.

And in a world full of transactional influencer posts, that’s a real differentiator.

And today, this kind of analysis takes seconds

Universe is a conversational assistant designed to help brands and agencies make smarter, faster decisions in influencer marketing.

If you want to get started with something simple, try 

 a free tool that tells you whether a creator has mentioned your brand or competitors recently.

It’s just a small piece of what Universe can do.

But it’s already enough to improve your decision-making.

Does it really make sense for that creator to represent your brand?

” mused Tiago Vilarinho, from our Customer Success team, the other day.

It can be hard to create a real team spirit. 

 bonding happens over shared space and spontaneous convos”, he wrote. 

And that’s why the Nomad Office was so important to him.  

Once or twice a year, the company rents a house for a long period of time and you can come to live for a few days, or even weeks, hanging out with colleagues and getting some work done from a different setting. This year’s ran from April to June.

“And the outcome?” He asks. And he answers:

Maria de Vicente also shared her thoughts

“Back from a few days in our Nomad Office in Sardinia — and reminded once again how lucky I am to work at a place that truly gets it.

Twice a year, we leave our screens behind (just a little) and spend time together in a beautiful place somewhere in the world — not for team building, not for productivity, just to be human and enjoy together.

Leading a team in a fully remote SaaS comes with its own challenges. 

But every time we meet, I’m reminded of how lucky I am to have found these people. Not just because we share a strong sense of purpose at work, but most importantly because they’re exceptional humans. We laugh, we support each other, and we face challenges side by side — because we know it’s the only way through.

For me, this experience isn’t about a change of scenery. It’s about building trust, sharing the journey, and creating space for real connection, growth, and appreciation.

, Manuel Albuquerque, our CEO, explained how the Nomad office had been an alternative to going back to the office full time. A way to keep the company remote, but connected. And now, he sees that validated:

“The team more than doubled from the last time we had a Nomad office- and so A LOT of people had never experienced it and you could hear the buzz and feel all the anticipation: people wandering what it was like, how things were, and so on. And then you see them get there and they have an amazing time and I got so many messages validating this vision of ours.”

“They text me saying how much they love this culture that we’ve created, how unifying it was for new team members,” he says. “That is the best part of these Nomad Offices, I think.” 

And the funny thing is: everybody’s so happy about the emotional, bonding, cultural aspects of the Nomad Office - that nobody even mentions that it was held on a spectacular beachside mansion, with grandiose views of the Med, in warm, welcoming Sardinia.

This year’s Nomad office: the best one yet?

Scaling is legendarily hard to do when you’re working with creators. Too many moving parts, too many platforms. “Hard to plan, harder to manage, almost impossible to track,” they say.

Want to learn how you can scale your Creator Marketing campaigns without having to hire a dozen new interns or outsourcing it to some ridiculously expensive consultancy?

Without breaking a sweat or breaking the law?

Primetag – A Framework for Scaling Your Influencer Marketing Campaigns

Scaling Your Influencer Marketing Campaigns Made Easy

What if you could understand exactly what your competitors are doing in Creator Marketing — in under a minute?

Universe is our AI-powered conversational assistant with access to over three billion pieces of content from Instagram and TikTok.

 All you have to do is ask. No briefings, no spreadsheets, no waiting around.

Here’s how we do it. (You can copy the prompts and run the same analysis with your own brand.)

Imagine we are running (pun-intended) an athletic brand. Maybe it’s underarmour, maybe it’s Puma. And we want to know how Nike and Adidas are doing with their Creator Marketing strategies.

1. Competitive analysis: Estimated Media Value, mentions, and engagement

To start, we simply asked Universe the following:

“Can you compare @nike and @adidas in the UK market on Instagram during 2024, including EMV, number of mentions, and total engagements?

Here’s what Universe returned in just a few seconds:

Universe doesn’t just show you numbers. It analyzes, compares, and takes you straight to the details. It adds links so you can see exactly which posts generated each metric, explore the actual content, and understand the context.

And on top of that, it generates charts, insights, and conclusions ready to share or present.

2. Content Strategy: Sponsored vs Organic, Content Type, and Influencer Profiles

To understand how each brand is executing their strategy, we asked Universe to break it down in three different ways:

“Compare the brands with three additional breakdowns: sponsored vs. organic content, content types, and influencer types”

As you can see, Universe not only gives you high-level metrics — it also breaks down 

, from the kind of influencers they work with to the formats they rely on and the balance between paid and organic efforts. 

To understand what kind of content is truly resonating with audiences, we asked Universe:

“What are the top 5 posts mentioning each brand, ranked by engagements?”

Universe not only shows you the top 5 — it also includes 

, so you can see exactly what was posted, by whom, and how it performed.

4. What Are the Key Topics in Sponsored Content for Each Brand?

Mentions are one thing — but understanding 

 reveals their true strategic priorities. So we asked Universe:

“What topics are being discussed in sponsored content mentioning @nike and @adidas on Instagram and TikTok in the UK during Q4 2024?”

, helping you understand what kind of stories brands are pushing — and how those stories are being amplified through paid media.

, so you can see the creative, the creator, and the engagement in one click.

Sometimes the most powerful insight comes from 

. The same brand can have very different positioning, volume, and engagement depending on the market. So we asked Universe:

“How many times were @nike and @adidas mentioned in each of the following markets on Instagram in 2024? UK, Spain, France, Italy, Portugal, USA, Germany, Mexico, and Brazil.”

Universe is powered by Primetag’s proprietary database,

 giving it access to billions of structured and geo-located influencer marketing posts across more than 110 countries. 

This means you can run accurate, cross-market comparisons instantly

This analysis is just a sample. Universe adapts to your needs:

What used to take days of work now takes just seconds.

Universe gives you presentation-ready data to help you make fast, evidence-based decisions — not just gut calls.

📈 A full analysis in seconds — and that’s just the beginning

What you’ve seen in this article is just a glimpse of what Universe can do. Behind each answer is the power to explore 

If it lives in Instagram or TikTok data, 

Universe can help you find it, understand it, and act on it.

Get Your Own Competitive Report — For Free

Hey thanks for reading! To give you a little taste of what Universe can do for you, we’ll send you a 

customized report just like the one in Block 1

, with Share of Voice, EMV, mentions, and engagement — comparing the brands you choose, in the market you care about, and for the time period you need.

Want to see how your brand stacks up against the competition?

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