DUBAI: Zero is somewhat of an influencer with more than 50,000 followers on TikTok and nearly 100,000 on Instagram. He is also not human.
Created by Offbeat Media Group, the virtual influencer was launched last year, becoming the first character to be introduced in the Nexus metaverse.
Virtual or AI influencers are not a new concept; they have been around for more than five years. Miquela Sousa was among the first to be launched, in 2016, as Lil Miquela on Instagram. Today, she has some 2.8 million followers on Instagram and 3.6 million on TikTok.
Zero, however, doesn’t like to be called an AI. In fact, referring to a tweet about Lil Miquela, he told the person who posted the tweet: “I’ll do ya one better. Skip talking to the creators and talk to the avatar himself.”
In another video, he talks to ChatGPT to see who is smarter.
Appearing on Masdar City’s Future Forward podcast, Christopher Travers, co-founder of Offbeat Media Group, described a virtual influencer as essentially taking “a character, which is not anything new necessarily, and you post it on social with a first-person personality.”
The show’s second season launched last month with the first episode featuring Zero and its creator Travers.
The show is aimed at making people “aware of technology and developments going on around the world, particularly those that relate to creating more future-oriented and sustainable cities and communities,” Steve Severance, growth director, Masdar City and Future Forward host, told Arab News.
“We also want to make it fun,” he said. The show’s slogan is “an unusual tech dialogue” and that is reflected in its choice of topics and guests.
In the first season, for example, “we invited an Emirati comedian named Ali Al Sayed to co-host, because we didn’t just want to educate — we wanted people to laugh and have a good time,” Severance said.
This season features BBC tech journalist Lucy Hedges as co-host and will focus on how different cities around the world are supporting entrepreneurs, technological development and urban growth. It will feature several different cities including Stockholm, Singapore, London, and of course Abu Dhabi.
The first episode of this season puts the spotlight on Atlanta, Georgia in the US, which is where Zero was born. With this episode, “we wanted to educate and enlighten our audiences while reaching out to Zero’s audience to make them aware of Masdar City’s work in tech innovation,” Severance said.
Although there are other virtual influencers, including Laila Blue in the Middle East, the show decided to feature Zero “given his profile and the size of his following, as well as the fact that he seems to be the trendsetter as one of the first virtual influencers, if not the first,” Severance said.
The team at Future Forward is, however, “always excited about profiling local talent,” which audiences will witness in the show’s upcoming episode that focuses on Abu Dhabi, he said.
The rise of AI and now generative AI is blurring the lines between virtual and in-person interactions. Masdar City, however, has no plans to enter the virtual influencer space just yet.
“We’ll always keep our ear to the ground about new developments, but we’re going to keep focusing on sustainable urban development, technology and innovation, and helping the UAE achieve carbon neutrality by 2050,” Severance said.
“We’ll leave virtual influencing to the experts.”
