India, April 21 -- Influencer Vrutika Patel maintains an active social media presence. On Instagram, she has more than 1 lakh followers and presents a sanitised feed. One picture shows her dressed in a blue kurta, posing in front of a bougainvillea shrub. Another shows drinking a cup of tea. Yet another picture shows her at a beach in Diu. She's tucking into a plate of pasta in one post.

In short, she is like any other lifestyle or fashion influencer. But there's just one catch - Vrutika Patel is not real.

Vrutika's profile is part of the recent crop of "AI influencers" taking over social media. Although the first AI influencers date back to the mid-2010s, the real boom in this fake creator economy happened more recently with the rise o...