TikTok Shop affiliate creators who post shoppable videos as a side hustle are losing ground to AI-generated influencers and product imagery that brands and TikTok's GMV Max ads system increasingly push into the feed, according to Business Insider. Some brands now use AI to spin up multiple versions of a post that performed well, while others publish hundreds of times a month without paying creators or shipping free samples. One AI-video maker drove tens of thousands of dollars in sales, per an affiliate profile screenshot Business Insider reviewed. Advertising lawyer Robert Freund warned that synthetic influencers claiming to have used a product could violate the FTC requirement that testimonials reflect honest opinions. Both the EU and New York now require brands to disclose when synthetic characters appear in ads.
