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| Fang Taozi: China’s AI Influencer Commands 258,000 Yuan for a 60-Second Advertisement |
Fang Taozi has become one of China’s most talked-about virtual influencers after reportedly commanding up to 258,000 yuan for a single 60-second advertisement, despite being entirely generated and operated through AI technology. The figure has surprised social media users because her follower count is still below half a million, yet her reported commercial rate is already higher than that of some human influencers with audiences running into the millions.
The virtual character first gained attention through the AI short drama The Girl Who Was Laid Off, where Fang Taozi appeared as an AI-generated actress. Her standalone social media account quickly developed a following of its own, collecting around 408,000 followers after its first video was posted on June 14.
Within little more than a month, the character had moved beyond being a fictional face in a short drama and into the rather more serious business of selling things.
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That transition has become a talking point in China because Fang Taozi is now being treated much like a conventional influencer.
Her account has attracted steady traffic and strong audience engagement, giving the team behind the character an opportunity to turn popularity into commercial income. In other words, the virtual actress has apparently reached the stage where she can pay the bills without technically existing.
The reported advertising rates are what really caught people's attention. Data attributed to Juliang Xingtu shows different prices depending on the length of the promotional video, with a reported fee of 168,000 yuan for videos between one and 20 seconds, 208,000 yuan for 21 to 60 seconds, and 258,000 yuan for content longer than 60 seconds.
Even at the shorter end, those figures put Fang Taozi firmly into a commercial league that would make plenty of human creators look twice.
The numbers are particularly striking because Fang has fewer than half a million followers. Some human influencers with audiences several times larger reportedly charge less, while the highest rate has even been compared with fees associated with some creators who have millions of followers.
It suggests that brands may be increasingly interested in more than follower counts alone, particularly when an AI character is closely tied to a successful piece of entertainment.
Fang Taozi’s rise did not happen by accident
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| Fang Taozi Goes Viral in China as AI Influencer’s Ad Fee Surpasses Some Human Creators |
The character's popularity is closely linked to The Girl Who Was Laid Off, an AI short drama that reportedly passed 200 million views across platforms.
Fang Taozi's role in the series gave audiences a character to follow beyond the individual episodes, and the standalone account allowed that interest to continue after viewers had finished watching the drama.
That is an important shift for AI entertainment. A digital character is no longer necessarily just something that appears inside a programme before disappearing when the credits roll.
Fang Taozi demonstrates how the same character can move from drama to social media and then into advertising, effectively building a commercial identity across several stages.
Her growing popularity also shows why AI short dramas are attracting increasing attention from the entertainment and marketing industries.
Once viewers become emotionally invested in a fictional digital character, the character can potentially carry that audience into other content and commercial campaigns. The distinction between an entertainment property and an influencer starts to become rather blurry.
And Fang Taozi is not the only example of that transition. Another successful AI drama, Yu Ni Shen Qing Qin Ru Yu Sheng, reportedly prompted strong sales of a bracelet similar to one featured in the story, with more than 2,000 units sold on one e-commerce platform.
The example suggests that audiences are already capable of turning fictional products and characters into real purchasing decisions.
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The contact lens advertisement changed the conversation
Fang Taozi's commercial debut might have remained a straightforward success story if not for one particular advertisement. In early August, the AI character appeared in a promotional video for coloured contact lenses, presented within the same dramatic style that had helped make her popular.
Rather than simply appearing beside the product, Fang Taozi was presented as though she had personally used it. In the video, she said the lenses remained comfortable after wearing them for an entire day, encouraged viewers to try them and identified the brand she was supposedly wearing.
The video was subsequently removed, but not before viewers had plenty to say about it.
Some fans reacted positively to the fact that Fang Taozi had secured her first commercial campaign, with comments celebrating the virtual character's move into advertising.
Others were considerably less enthusiastic and questioned how an AI-generated character could genuinely describe the experience of wearing a product that requires actual physical use.
That criticism is not difficult to understand. A computer-generated character can convincingly blink, smile, pose and appear to wear a product, but it cannot exactly pull off the old-fashioned influencer tradition of actually trying something and then telling viewers whether it worked. The technology can render the eyes perfectly; it cannot manufacture a personal experience that never happened.
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Other viewers took a more measured position. Some said they were happy to see the character work with brands but wanted commercial recommendations to be based on genuine product testing.
Others questioned whether an AI-generated endorsement could provide consumers with meaningful information about how contact lenses feel when worn by a real person.
The split in reactions is revealing. Fans appear increasingly comfortable with AI characters as entertainers, but that acceptance becomes more complicated when the character starts presenting itself as a consumer who has personally tested a product.
Contact lenses are not simply another beauty accessory. In China, coloured contact lenses are regulated as medical devices, meaning advertising and sales are subject to requirements that do not apply in quite the same way to ordinary cosmetics.
That distinction is central to the criticism surrounding Fang Taozi's advertisement. A fictional character saying that a lipstick looks good is one thing. A virtual character claiming that a product worn directly on the eye remained comfortable throughout the day is a very different proposition.
The concern is not whether AI can produce a convincing image. Clearly, it can. The question is whether a convincing image should be allowed to stand in for a real product experience when consumers are making decisions based on the claim.
That is where the Fang Taozi controversy becomes bigger than one advertisement. AI influencers can be designed to look as though they have used almost anything. They can appear to eat food, wear clothes, test beauty products or demonstrate gadgets without physically doing any of those things. The visual result may look perfectly authentic, while the experience being described simply does not exist.
It creates an awkward question for advertisers: if the person recommending the product is not a person, who is actually making the recommendation?
Fang Taozi’s business success is still hard to ignore
Despite the controversy surrounding the contact lens campaign, the commercial performance of Fang Taozi's account is difficult to dismiss. The character has built a sizeable following in a short period and appears to have benefited from the popularity of the AI drama that introduced her.
Her reported advertising rates also show that brands are willing to place substantial value on the audience gathered around a virtual personality. That is arguably the more significant development here.
The technology itself is no longer the novelty. The interesting part is that businesses are beginning to treat AI-generated characters as media properties capable of generating revenue.
The model could prove attractive for companies because a virtual influencer can be managed differently from a human creator. The character's appearance, voice, personality and storyline can be controlled centrally, and content can theoretically be produced without the practical limitations that come with a conventional influencer.
But that control comes with its own problem. When everything about the character can be created according to instructions, the line between entertainment and manufactured endorsement becomes exceptionally thin.
A human influencer can at least say, "I tried this and this was my experience." An AI character can say exactly the same thing without having experienced anything at all. That difference may become one of the defining regulatory questions for the next generation of digital advertising.
The rise of Fang Taozi suggests that AI influencers could become a much bigger commercial category in China. Once an AI character has a recognisable identity, a loyal audience and a successful storyline behind it, there is little reason for brands not to explore the same advertising opportunities available to human creators.
That could mean more virtual actors appearing in short dramas, developing their own social accounts and eventually becoming standalone commercial personalities. The character no longer has to wait for a human actor to become famous. The character itself can become the celebrity.
For audiences, however, that means a little more attention will be required. A virtual person can look incredibly convincing while remaining entirely fictional. Viewers may need to become better at distinguishing between a character performing a role and a creator describing something they have genuinely experienced.
For regulators, the challenge is even greater. Existing advertising rules were largely designed around human advertisers, brands and conventional media. AI-generated personalities introduce another layer because the face appearing on screen may not be a real person, while responsibility still ultimately sits with the companies and people creating, publishing and paying for the advertisement.
The broader issue is therefore unlikely to disappear with Fang Taozi. As more AI characters attract hundreds of thousands or even millions of followers, questions over disclosure, product claims, consumer protection and accountability will become increasingly difficult to ignore.
For now, the most striking thing about Fang Taozi is not the contact lens advertisement but how quickly she has moved from fictional AI actress to commercial influencer. In just over a month, she has reportedly built an audience of more than 400,000 followers and secured advertising rates reaching hundreds of thousands of yuan.
That is an extraordinary commercial trajectory for a character that did not exist in the conventional sense.
The success also suggests that audiences are beginning to accept digital personalities as more than technological demonstrations. They can have storylines, personalities, fan communities and commercial value. Once that happens, the next logical step is obvious: more brands will want a piece of the audience.
Whether audiences will accept every type of endorsement is another question entirely. Fang Taozi's contact lens campaign has shown that people may happily embrace an AI character as an entertainer while drawing the line when that same character starts claiming personal product experience.
That distinction could become increasingly important as China's AI influencer industry develops. Fang Taozi may be fictional, but the business surrounding her is very real — and her 258,000-yuan advertising rate suggests the market is already taking virtual celebrities seriously.
The bigger question now is whether audiences will continue to trust AI influencers when the screen stops asking them to watch a story and starts asking them to buy something. Would you trust a virtual influencer's product recommendation, or does a real review still matter more?finished watching the drama