Jul 04, 2025 20:00:00

AI is making it easier to create virtual avatars and faceless narrators, sparking a new wave of VTubers and TikTok creators.

Virtual YouTubers (Vtubers) are a form of content that became popular in Japan around 2017. They originally started out as avatars or icons made up of characters such as illustrations, Live2D , and 3D models created by artists, and spread as a form of video posting and distribution. With the development of generative AI, it is now possible not only to create characters, but also to generate voices, videos, and sentences spoken by the characters, making it easier than ever to create VTubers, and major American broadcaster CNBC reports that 'a new wave of virtual creators is taking off.'

AI virtual personality YouTubers, or 'VTubers,' are earning millions
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/02/ai-virtual-personality-youtubers-or-vtubers-are-earning-millions.html

Bloo, a popular YouTuber who has garnered 2.5 million subscribers and over 700 million views on gameplay videos, mainly from the Grand Theft Auto series and Minecraft, is a virtual character with the appearance of a 3D avatar. Bloo is another account of Jordi van den Busche, who owns the YouTube channel kwebbelkop , which has 15 million subscribers, and is a Vtuber who makes full use of AI, including ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and the voice cloning AI ElevenLabs.

In the image below, Bloo is on the left and Boucher is on the right. Like many VTubers, Bloo uses motion capture and face tracking technology to allow humans to control the character's voice and movements in real time, like a marionette.

When asked why he created Bloo, Boucher said, 'I couldn't keep up with the demand for content creation. If humans continue to work and create content, there will inevitably be a point where the amount of work and the results are not balanced. The only logical way to do this was to replace humans with photorealistic people or comic book characters. VTubers were the only option. And that's where Bloo was born.'

Boucher's long-term goal is to run Bloo's personality and the entire content creation process with AI. In fact, Boucher has already tested AI-created videos on Bloo's channel, but Boucher points out that the content performance is not that good because AI is still far inferior to human intuition and imagination. 'If AI can work better, faster, or cheaper than humans, we will start using it permanently,' Boucher said.

The technology for virtual accounts, like the one Boucher envisions, is growing rapidly with the development of AI technology. Startup

Hedra offers an AI called 'Character-3' that generates videos of up to five minutes, and allows users to create characters for videos and add lines and other characteristics. Hedra CEO Michael Ringelbach told CNBC, 'We're developing a product that allows users to create fully automated, autonomous characters. We're doing a lot of research to accelerate models like Character-3 to real time, which will be perfect for VTubers.'

The video generation AI 'Veo 3' announced by Google in May 2025 may also be able to create completely virtual characters. In addition to improving the quality of past models, Veo 3 is the first Google video generation AI to generate videos with 'audio', and Google promoted its performance by saying, 'Say goodbye to the silent era of video generation.' On the other hand, Google is training Veo 3 using some of the content uploaded to YouTube, and it has been reported that many creators were unaware that it would be used for training , raising concerns about copyright crises.

Google announces video generation AI 'Veo 3', capable of 4K output and simultaneous audio generation - GIGAZINE

In China, 'digital humans' that combine animation, audio technology, and machine learning and can sing and interact through live broadcasts have been rapidly spreading since around 2023, and they are expected to play an active role as virtual idols and scandal-free virtual influencers. There are also examples of fictional characters created by AI working as influencers, such as the AI model ' Aitana ,' who earns over 1.6 million yen a month.

Unlike Vtubers, the 'digital human' industry, which has no real people inside, is booming in China, aiming to become scandal-free influencers - GIGAZINE

Another issue of concern for fully automated, AI-driven Vtubers is the credibility of their content. Henry Ajdar, founder of Latent Space Advisory, which helps companies enter the AI market, said, 'Even if the content is useful and someone finds it interesting or useful, I feel we are entering an era where there is no way to understand what is human-made and what is not.' AI-created persuasive videos run the risk of spreading misinformation.

In addition, the large amount of low-quality AI content that is flooding posting sites and social media feeds is called 'AI slop,' and some users are disgusted by it. 'The era of slop is inevitable. Meta, which is facing AI slop on Facebook and Instagram, doesn't know how to respond yet,' said Ajdar, an AI policy adviser at Meta.

However, many of the AI content creators CNBC spoke to argue that it's ultimately a question of demand and sharing. Hedra CEO Lingelbach said of AI content creation, 'Bad content has always existed on the internet. There's never been a barrier to creating bad content. Now, it's much easier to create bad content, so at the same time, there's more opportunity to create really good content.'