An awards contest billing itself as the “‘Oscars’ for AI personalities” will distribute $20,000 in prizes to the creators of virtual influencers, with judging criteria that include whether their digital characters have the correct number of fingers.
The competition, a joint venture between generative AI studio OpenArt and creator platform Fanvue, backed by voice company ElevenLabs, opens Monday and runs for one month. According to the announcement, it is intended to “celebrate the creative talent ‘behind’ AI Influencers” as the sector matures from novelty into a commercially serious industry.
Prize money will be divided among an overall winner and five category champions covering fitness, lifestyle, comedy, music and dance, and fictional or animated personalities. Winners will be recognized at a May event. Entrants must build their AI influencer on OpenArt’s platform and submit via www.AIpersonality.ai, providing social media handles across TikTok, X, YouTube, and Instagram, along with the character’s backstory and any existing brand partnerships.
How entries will be judged
A judges’ briefing seen by a reporter details four scoring criteria: quality, social clout, brand appeal, and the inspiration behind the avatar. Practical checkpoints include consistent visual presentation across platforms, reliable follower engagement, anatomically plausible details like the “right number of fingers and thumbs,” and possession of “an authentic narrative.”
Judges include Gil Rief, a 13-time Emmy-winning comedy writer; the creators of Spanish AI model Aitana Lopez; and Christopher “Topher” Townsend, the MAGA rapper who created AI-generated gospel singer Solomon Ray.
Established influencers may enter but must still submit material produced on OpenArt’s platform, Fanvue head of brand Matt Jones said. Entrants are also not required to identify themselves publicly. “If a person who created this amazing piece of work wants nothing to do with the press or to expose themselves or to have their name out there, that’s obviously fine,” Jones said. “There would be no need to thrust anybody into the limelight here.”
Authenticity questions linger
Allowing anonymous entrants sits uneasily against a scoring system that rewards authentic storytelling, particularly in an industry already associated with fabricated personas and limited accountability. AI influencer grifts — including a white nationalist AI rapper and a MAGA fantasy persona — have previously operated with little consequence behind the same veil of anonymity the contest now accommodates.
Fanvue carries prior controversy into the contest. Its 2024 “Miss AI” beauty pageant drew criticism from a Guardian columnist who described it as packaging “every toxic gendered beauty norm” into an “unrealistic” format. Questions about whether AI-generated likenesses are derived from real creators’ work without credit, and whether generative tools replicate existing biases, have followed the broader industry and attach here too.
Jones pushed back on the authenticity tension, arguing that creators inevitably embed themselves in the characters they build. “You can’t help but put a little bit of yourself into the stories that you tell and the characters that you make,” he said.
Photo by Fahim Reza on Unsplash
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