Can AI Influencers Really Make Money? A 7 Day Side Hustle Experiment

 

Making money online often sounds complicated. You might think you need a large audience, expensive equipment, a website, or even a personal brand before you can start.

But what if you could build a social media influencer without showing your face or using your own voice?

That was the idea behind a recent 7 day challenge by Mark Tilbury. He explored whether AI powered influencers could become a real online business with a starting budget of just $99.

The goal was simple. Create virtual influencers, grow their social media accounts, build an audience, and then find a way to make money from that audience.

The final result was interesting. The experiment generated 23 sales and a total profit of $157.48 after software costs and fees.

Here is how the experiment worked.

Starting With Three Different Niches

The first step was finding a topic that people were already interested in.

Three broad areas stood out:

Health

Wealth

Relationships

These are subjects that naturally attract attention because people are always looking for ways to improve different parts of their lives.

Instead of creating one general AI character, Mark decided to create three different personalities.

The first was Amos, a fictional 101 year old health expert.

The second was Grandma Vivian, a fictional wealth focused character.

The third was Sienna, a relationship advisor.

Each character had a different personality and purpose. This made the accounts feel more like individual creators rather than simple AI generated pages.

Using AI to Build the Characters

Creating a believable virtual influencer requires more than generating a random image.

The character needs to look reasonably consistent from one piece of content to another. Their personality also needs to remain recognizable.

Claude was used to help develop the characters, including their personalities, ideas and scripts.

AI image and video tools were then used to create the visual content.

One of the important parts of the process was maintaining consistency. If the character looks completely different in every video, viewers may find it difficult to connect with the account.

This is one of the areas where AI tools can make the process much faster than creating everything manually.

Turning Ideas Into Short Videos

After creating the characters, the next step was producing social media content.

Tools such as Higgsfield were used alongside Claude to create images, scenes and scripts that could eventually be turned into short form videos.

The basic process was something like this:

Choose a topic.

Create the script.

Generate the character and scene.

Turn the idea into a short video.

Publish it on social media.

Then watch how people respond.

This is important because creating content is only half of the process. You also need to discover which topics and formats people actually want to watch.

Launching Three Instagram Accounts

The three AI influencers were given their own Instagram accounts.

The goal was not simply to post a few videos and immediately expect money.

The accounts needed to be tested.

Different videos could attract different levels of attention. Some might receive very little engagement, while another could suddenly reach a much larger audience.

This is one reason why a 7 day experiment cannot tell the entire story of a social media business.

A new account may need considerably more time before the algorithm has enough information to understand its audience.

Amos Became the First Winner

During the early part of the experiment, Amos appeared to be the strongest performer.

This gave Mark an opportunity to think beyond simply gaining followers.

Instead of asking, "How can I get more views?" the more important question became:

How can this audience eventually become a business?

That is where monetization came into the experiment.

Creating a Digital Product

Rather than relying only on advertising revenue, Mark created a digital workbook called Old Ways.

The workbook was designed around the health focused audience that had developed around Amos.

It was hosted through Standstore, giving the audience a product they could purchase.

This is an important part of the business model.

A social media account itself does not necessarily generate meaningful income just because it has views. The real business opportunity can come from having something useful that matches what the audience is interested in.

For a health focused audience, a relevant digital product makes more sense than trying to sell something completely unrelated.

Then Grandma Vivian Surprised Everyone

The experiment did not end exactly as expected.

Although Amos had performed strongly earlier, Grandma Vivian experienced a late surge in attention.

This is a good example of how unpredictable social media can be.

A video that looks ordinary at first may suddenly receive much more attention than previous posts.

That also shows why stopping an experiment too early can give you an incomplete picture.

The Final Numbers

By the end of the 7 day challenge, the experiment had generated 23 sales of the digital product.

After taking software expenses and fees into account, the reported profit was $157.48.

The result was not presented as a guarantee that anyone can make the same amount of money.

Instead, it showed that the basic model can work:

AI character → social media content → audience → relevant digital product → sales

The amount of money earned can vary significantly depending on the niche, content quality, audience size, product and platform performance.

Does This Mean AI Influencers Are a "Lazy" Side Hustle?

The idea sounds easy when you describe it in one sentence.

Create an AI influencer.

Post videos.

Get followers.

Sell a digital product.

But the actual process involves much more work.

You still need to research your niche, create useful content, test different ideas, study audience reactions and improve your strategy.

AI can reduce the amount of manual work involved, but it does not remove the need for good ideas and consistent effort.

In fact, one of the biggest lessons from the experiment was that seven days was probably not enough time to fully optimize the model.

What Beginners Can Learn From This Experiment

There are several useful lessons here for someone interested in starting an online business.

1. Start With a Specific Audience

Instead of creating content for everyone, choose a clear audience and understand what they care about.

Health, wealth and relationships are broad categories, but each can be narrowed down into more specific problems.

2. Test Before Spending Too Much

The experiment started with a relatively small budget.

This is useful because you do not necessarily need to spend a large amount of money before finding out whether people are interested in your idea.

3. Views Are Not the Whole Business

Getting views is useful, but views alone do not automatically create income.

A business needs a way to turn attention into revenue.

A relevant digital product is one possible approach.

4. AI Is a Tool, Not the Business

AI can help with characters, scripts, images and videos.

But the underlying business still depends on understanding people.

You need to know what your audience wants, what problems they have and what kind of content they find useful.

5. Seven Days May Be Too Short

Social media growth is rarely perfectly predictable.

One account may grow quickly while another takes much longer. A video can also become popular days after it was published.

That means a short challenge can demonstrate the idea, but it cannot necessarily show its long term potential.

Final Thoughts

The 7 day AI influencer experiment provides an interesting look at how AI is changing the way people can create online content.

The most interesting part is not simply that virtual influencers were created.

It is the complete business process behind them.

Research a niche, create a recognizable character, produce content, build an audience and then offer that audience something relevant.

The experiment ended with 23 sales and $157.48 in reported profit after expenses. That does not mean everyone who follows the same steps will achieve the same result.

However, it does show that AI can reduce some of the barriers involved in creating content and testing an online business idea.

For beginners, the bigger lesson may be simple: you do not always need a huge budget or a personal brand to test an idea. Sometimes the better approach is to start small, see what people respond to, and improve the model as you learn.

And with AI tools becoming easier to use, experimenting with new online business models is becoming more accessible than it was a few years ago.