Meet the AI Wellness Influencers Making Dubious Health Claims—and What Their Boom Means for Women’s Health

When ‘Instagram vs Reality’ first gained traction back in 2014, it served as a reminder not to believe everything we see on social media. Back then, we were looking out for heavy face tuning and Paris filters, overly smoothed skin and artificially slimmed thighs.

But in 2026, the phrase has taken on an entirely new dimension. Now, instead of deciphering whether a creator has tweaked their appearance, we have to question whether they’re human at all.

It seems almost dystopian, but it’s true. The AI-generated influencer market is now worth over $11 billion, with virtual personas earning up to 40x more than the average human creator.

That in itself seems bizarre. But there’s also a darker side to this booming industry. Because, as an investigation by the New York Times revealed in July, hundreds of these hyperrealistic AI-generated personas are being used to tout misleading health information online. It’s a frightening reality, especially given that one in four of us rely on social media and AI as a source of health information.

As if that wasn’t enough, there’s another layer, too - one that The Times didn’t address. Because as these AI-generated influencers proliferate, genuinely credible women’s health creators and brands are having their content hidden and removed by social media platforms right here in the UK. In fact, 95% of women’s health brands who responded to a survey by CensHERship in 2025 reported experiencing digital suppression.

Ahead, we investigate what the rise of virtual influencers really means for an already murky online wellness landscape. With the help of lawyers, scam researchers and women’s health experts, we ask who these AI-generated personas really are, how we can spot them, and what their presence on our feeds really means for our wellbeing.

Whilst you’re here, you can find more investigations into the modern state of wellness, including the chronic issue of PMDD misdiagnosis, the debate around the new Ozempic add-on pill, and what the launch of ChatGPT Health means for women, over on the MC UK health section.

Meet the AI "Wellness Experts" Sharing Dangerous Advice

What is an AI-generated wellness influencer?

Early adopters and tech wizards, forgive me, but before we go any further, I think it’s important to define what an AI-generated influencer actually is.

For that, I turn to Kelly Allison, founder of KVA digital communications agency and host of the Health Applied podcast, who specialises in the humanisation of AI. “An AI influencer is an avatar or an artificial persona, often created by a brand to represent them,” she explains. “Usually, these personas aren’t usually based on real people - they’re created from scratch in order to give the brand full control of their appearance and narrative.”

Occasionally, though, AI influencers do represent real people. “Some influencers have created digital twins of themselves,” says Allison. “It’s less common because they can erode trust with an audience built over years, but it does allow the influencer to take on more work.”

One thing to note: an AI influencer is different to a deepfake. “Deepfakes are digital twins of a celebrity, influencer or someone in the public eye, created unethically and without their permission,” says Allison.

As for where these AI influencers live, often it’s on a brand’s channel where they’re used for individual promotional videos. At the same time, though, there has been a rise in entirely new profiles being built around virtual influencers. “Many of these profiles are bot-managed,” says Allison. “They can respond to comments, follow back and can grow very quickly.”

She points out that Meta has some regulations and auto-detect tools to mitigate against the creation of these bot-managed profiles, but says that not all are picked up. “The result is people following someone who they think is a real-life influencer, and yet behind the content there is no substance, no empathy or emotions.”

Why are wellness brands using AI influencers instead of human creators?

Unless you work in marketing, you might be wondering why a brand would create an entirely new persona instead of working with an actual human creator. As with most things, the answer comes down, in large part, to money.

“It’s not just avoiding having to pay the influencer themselves,” says Allison. “Brands using AI-generated influencers can also make savings against translations, editing, briefing and rights to share across multiple platforms.”

It’s what makes them so popular amongst wellness brands. “If you’re trying to show someone how to inject or apply a product at home, using an avatar is a quick, accurate and cost-effective way to do that,” says Allison. “There’s less need for human trust because the video is instructional.”

There’s also an element of control at play. “With a human influencer, brands are relying on an influencer’s individual style and way of presenting a narrative,” Allison explains. “In contrast, an AI influencer can be engineered to speak specifically to a brand’s audience across different platforms.”

What’s the problem with AI-generated wellness influencers?

It’s the complete control brands have over the narrative that presents a potential danger for consumers. The influencer industry is built on trust - the principle that someone on your feed has tried a product and influenced you to buy it based on their first-hand experience. Over the years, we’ve watched that trust erode even in the human sphere, as influencers have marketed products that feel misaligned with their values.

When you remove the human entirely, that opportunity for deception grows. “An AI influencer has zero values, and yet they can be programmed to use the most emotionally persuasive, warm, kind, caring, empathetic language,” explains Allison.

The result is an influencer model that relies entirely on a brand’s moral compass to share credible information. And that, unsurprisingly, has opened up an industry of scams, known as PharmaFraud. “Last year alone our software stopped over one million attempts to send people to fake pharmacy sites from social media,” says Leyla Bilge, global head of scam research at Norton. “These sites are dressed up to look exactly like a real online chemist but are selling medication that either doesn’t exist or isn’t what it claims to be.”

Bilge says that mid-life women are the demographic most frequently targeted by these faux-pharmacies, which primarily market medication relating to weight-loss, sexual health, hormone health and antibiotics. “This content works on emotion, and it follows trends fast,” says Bilge. “AI can build websites and personas very quickly, so they can follow the health story people are searching for.”

To add insult to injury, all of this is happening at the same time as medically accurate women’s health content is being censored. “Automated moderation treats an anatomical word such as ‘vagina’, ‘breast’, ‘cervix’ or ‘menstruation’ as an indicator of sexual content and restricts it, regardless of whether the post is providing legitimate health education,” explains Kate Prince, head of public affairs at health and hygiene corporation, Essity.

It’s an issue which Dr Helen O’Neill, Professor in Reproductive and Molecular Genetics and co-founder of Hertility, has experienced first-hand. “Meta actively removes Hertility content,” she tells me, referencing a promotional video the brand used of a real woman discussing her experience of endometriosis and secondary infertility. Meta removed the video for being too political. “There is an obvious gender bias in what platforms deem acceptable when it comes to health,” Dr O’Neill explains. “More than 600 women’s health companies have reported experiencing censorship or restrictions of their content.”

As the experts point out, suppressing credible information doesn’t stop women looking for answers - it simply creates a vacuum for misinformation to fill at the exact moment that AI-influencers are rising. “Our research found that three-quarters of 18- to 34-year-olds turn to social media to educate themselves about male and female health, and 47% of social-media users regard it as important for health education,” says Prince.

It’s this interaction between AI-generated misinformation and the suppression of medically accurate women’s health information that creates the issue. “If users cannot distinguish between a real clinician, a commercial avatar and a fabricated testimonial, they cannot properly assess the credibility or motivation of the advice,” says Prince, who points out the myriad of potential consequences.

“People might delay professional advice, make inappropriate treatment decisions, spend money on ineffective products or become unnecessarily frightened about normal symptoms.”

Are AI-generated wellness influencers always untrustworthy?

Before we consider how we separate a credible AI-influencer from a scam, it’s important to point out that a brand simply using them in their content isn’t a red flag. “AI influencers could be useful if they are designed around transparency, evidence and human accountability,” says Prince. “They could translate trusted health information from sources like the NHS website into accessible language, communicate in different languages and formats, reach underserved audiences and signpost people towards appropriate services.”

It’s the lack of regulation that makes trusting them a challenge, particularly as the technology rapidly becomes more convincing. “The UK has no standalone laws for AI influencers or AI marketing, relying instead on existing consumer laws and advertising codes to regulate generative media,” says Stacey Gray, Commercial Senior Associate at Square One Law. She explains that, although brands have a legal responsibility not to share misinformation or misleading content, there is currently no blanket requirement to disclose an AI’s identity in organic social media posts.

For Prince, that’s a sign we need tighter restrictions, such as a verification tool for qualified health professionals on social media. “That would help users recognise reliable sources and help platforms protect clinically accurate education from wrongful suppression,” she says.

How to spot an AI-generated influencer scam:

While we wait for the platforms to clamp down on AI influencer credibility, how can we protect ourselves online?

1. Look for a digital footprint

According to Bilge, it’s no longer enough to look for video glitches like funky hands or unrealistic-looking hair. “That advice is dating fast as the sophistication of AI evolves,” she says. Instead, she recommends we look at the influencer’s digital footprint.

“If it’s a digital twin of a real celebrity, check if they have talked about that product on their own verified account,” says Bilge, whilst Allison points out that with AI, often there is no footprint at all. “This is because the persona has been created for one particular purpose,” she explains. “In these cases, it’s crucial that a brand has labelled their content as AI, and that they have data to back up the claims being made.”

2. Check for licenses and qualifications

In the UK, all registered pharmacies are listed by the General Pharmaceutical Council. These providers won’t offer you a medication without a prescription - something Bilge says is a clear red flag in unlicensed providers. “Avoid anything that will sell you a medical product without a prescription, or who will offer you a prescription without meaningful consultation,” she says.

If it’s an individual rather than a brand, Dr O’Neill reminds us to look up their qualifications. “Look at who is actually behind the claim. What are their qualifications? Are they a regulated healthcare entity or professional, and are they qualified in the area they’re talking about?” She says.

3. Watch out for bold claims and pressurising statements

Bold, sweeping statements from any online wellness creator, whether they’re human or AI-generated, are things to watch out for.

“Incredibly simple solutions to complicated biology, particularly claims about ‘balancing hormones’, reversing conditions or fixing fertility, are important to be wary of,” says Dr O’Neill.

Bilge agrees, adding that “if everything around the order process feels generic and rushed, that’s usually a sign that something isn’t right.”

Shop MC-UK approved wellness products now: