Owain Lewis – AI Engineer – Free Download Course - Great New Courses - Online eLearning With The Best Coaches

Summary5 min read

Great New Courses – Online eLearning With The Best Coaches

Episode: Owain Lewis – AI Engineer – Free Download Course

Host: Eric Mega Download | Date: June 12, 2026

Episode Overview

In this episode, Eric Mega Download explores the burgeoning world of AI influencers on social media, diving into the ethics, strategies, and business tactics behind using artificial intelligence to create virtual personalities, bulk up their followings with fake accounts, and attempt to monetize them through brand deals and sponsorships. The experiment involves building a fake AI influencer Instagram persona, artificially inflating its follower count with bought followers, and testing whether brands are savvy enough to spot the fakery before parting with advertising dollars. The conversation highlights the grey area between marketing innovation and online fraud, offering insights and cautionary lessons for brands and content creators alike.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Is an AI Influencer? (00:00–02:10)

The episode kicks off with the host explaining the goal: Create an AI influencer Instagram account, buy fake followers, and see if this can lead to real brand deals.
Definition: An AI influencer is a virtual persona, curated and managed by AI, posting as a fictional “personality.”
- “It's an account on Instagram where the person that's showcasing their life isn't actually real and is 100% AI.” (A, 00:50)
The allure for brands: No risk of scandals, complete creative control, and 24/7 reliability.

2. The Prevalence of Fakery in Influencer Marketing (02:10–03:20)

Host cites startling data:
- “Apparently 49% of all influencers ... have bought fake followers, and that includes the likes of Katy Perry, the Kardashians, Chris Brown and Miley Cyrus ... with about 33% of their followers being fake.” (A, 01:45)
This sets up the core question: Do brands care? And can you really monetize fake clout?

3. Setting Up the AI Influencer (03:20–06:20)

The process involves curating content (AI-generated images), then accelerating account growth by buying fake followers for efficiency.
Step-by-step walkthrough of buying followers:
- Using famestate.com, $20 is enough for 10,000 followers and 200–500 likes per post.
- Issue: Inauthentic comments—but suspicion is that “most brands won't even check the comment section.” (A, 05:30)

Notable Moment

Acknowledgement of moral grey area:
- “If you guys want to buy the followers for yourself, the link will be in the description. They're pretty cheap if you ask me.” (A, 05:40)
  (This tongue-in-cheek self-awareness is repeated throughout.)

4. Reaching Out to Brands – The Pitch (06:20–10:45)

Two hypotheses:
1. Will brands work with an AI influencer if pitched correctly?
2. Will brands check (or care) if the followers are real?
Process:
- DMs and emails to brands (big like Fashion Nova and small jewelry companies), with a pitch that emphasizes AI influencer advantages—speed, efficiency, and no personal “baggage.”
Early results: Only standard affiliate/ambassador offers returned—not the lucrative deals sought.

5. Scaling Up – More Followers, Lower Prices (10:45–16:00)

Insight: The issue is not exposure of fake followers—brands seem interested in the AI concept, but balked at a low follower count.
- “People wanted to work with the AI influencer account, but they just didn't want to work with a micro AI influencer...” (A, 11:20)
Solution: Buy 50,000 more followers (now 60,000 total) and additional likes.
- “I finished this massive Instagram account in three days. About 20 emails have been sent and we have gotten zero conversions. No brand deals so far.” (A, 13:50)
Re-evaluate pricing: Initial $500/post deemed too high. Drops to $150/post, accompanied by a new batch of outreach.

6. The Tipping Point: Securing a Brand Deal (16:00–19:30)

Lower price proves enticing: “We literally just convinced this brand to give us $300 for an image post. Actually, we didn't even convince them ... they immediately came back with like an offer.” (A, 17:10)
Brands still aren’t checking for fake followers:
- “They literally offered us 300 real dollars for 0 real followers. But the thing is, if they just checked if the followers were real or not, just literally spent 10 seconds checking, they would immediately be able to tell that our followers weren't actually real. But they didn't check.” (A, 17:45)
Main takeaway for brands: Buyer beware. Most brands don’t vet influencer authenticity.

Memorable Quotes

“Who would you rather pick? A normal influencer, [or] an AI influencer who can do whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want, and they never run the risk of getting canceled...” (A, 01:08)
“If you were unethical, we would literally capitalize on it ... I wonder how many people would check [the followers] and how many people wouldn't.” (A, 09:50)
“This should be one lesson you should take from this video. Check if the followers are real, because they might not be. And you could potentially be throwing money away.” (A, 18:40)
“The only problem is it would be fraud and you'd probably end up in jail. So unless you want to end up in jail, maybe don't do this.” (A, 19:12)

Timestamps for Important Segments

00:00–02:10 — Definition and premise of the AI influencer experiment
02:10–03:20 — The normalization of fake followers in the influencer economy
03:20–06:20 — Quickstart: Building and padding the account with fake followers
06:20–10:45 — Outreach strategy: pitching AI influencers to brands
10:45–16:00 — Doubling down: More followers, price revisions, and market realities
16:00–19:30 — Success: First brand deal and ethical reflection

Tone and Takeaways

The episode’s tone is candid and irreverent, with the host blending practical advice with a “don’t-try-this-at-home” ethos. The content exposes the relative ease of deceiving brands with inflated vanity metrics, but also issues strong ethical warnings about the ramifications of such schemes.

Key Lessons:

The influencer marketing landscape remains vulnerable to manipulation by fake personas and followers.
Many brands, especially smaller ones, do not verify influencer audiences—potentially wasting marketing budgets.
The commercial temptation exists, but crossing the line into outright fraud has legal risks.

Summary:
This episode offers a fascinating, hands-on investigation into the mechanics and pitfalls of AI influencer marketing. While the host demonstrates how virtual personalities can attract real brand interest (and money) with fake followings, he closes by warning listeners about the ethical and legal dangers—urging brands to be vigilant and listeners to use these lessons responsibly.

Loading summary

Transcript1 lines

[00:01]
A
In this video, I'm going to be building an AI influencer. Then I'm going to be buying her between 10 to 20,000 fake followers. Then we're going to be seeing if it's possible to use and leverage those fake followers to somehow make money online. We're going to be building an AI influencer account and see if it's possible to leverage the followers on the account to get some sponsorships and brand deals. We're not going to be taking the brand deals, but I still want to see if it's possible to even get a paid brand deal after spending only like $20 buying some followers. So what is an AI influencer? Well, it sounds exactly like what it is. It's an account on Instagram where the person that's showcasing their life isn't actually real and is 100% AI. So basically we're going to be creating an AI personality and posting a bunch of pictures of her on Instagram so we can get some brand deals and get paid from some companies. But we're going to be adding an extra step because we're going to be giving her fake followers to make sure that those brand deals want to sign with us and treat us to some pretty high checks. And I know what you're thinking, no way. These brands are way too small. They will never fall for fake Instagram followers. Well, apparently 49% of all influencers, influencers on Instagram have bought fake followers and that includes the likes of Katy Perry, the Kardashians, Chris Brown and Miley Cyrus to say the least, with about 33 of their followers being fake. So I just created a new Instagram account right now. And so we need to put some content on the account so that, you know, brands want to work with. I actually think a lot of brands are going to be happy with this proposition. I mean, think about it. If you're a brand, who would you rather pick? A normal influencer, An AI influencer who can do whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want, and they never run the risk of getting canceled or having, you know, questionable opinions. And I think if I sell the idea of a influences like that to a brand, they could potentially side with us and give us a brand deal. Or before we even get to that point, we first need to get taken seriously. And so we're going to need to gain some followers. Now, the right thing to do and what I would do in the future, I wasn't running low on time, is I would just go ahead and just start growing this account by Posting a bunch of AI influencer pictures. But in the sake of time and the fact that I don't want to spend three weeks making this video, I'm going to go ahead now and get some fake followers just to speed up this process. So because of that, I'm going to go into this website called Fame State, onto a website called famestate.com the sponsors of today's video. We literally went onto the website, clicked on add funds. I clicked the stripe option because stripes are trustworthy company and I could get a quick refund if this didn't work. I clicked on the 20 option because that's all we need to get some decent fake followers. Then we click pay, plugged in our credit card details and then we had 20 added onto the website. Then we clicked on this. Instagram followers here chose this option. We added the link to our Instagram page over here, buying 10,000 followers, which came out to about $8. Click submit and we finally got 10,000 fake followers. We also coupled it with 200 to 500 likes per post on each post. The only problem I will admit was the comment section. Like we had a bunch of almost inauthentic comments, but I'm pretty sure most brands won't even check the comments section. To be honest. If you guys want to buy the follows for yourself, the link will be in the description. They're pretty cheap if you ask me. But now that we had the AI Instagram influencer and now we had the Instagram account figured out, it was now time to actually generate some cash from this and get some goddamn brand deals. And you won't believe this, but after following a couple of celebrities on the account and just being active on the account, we received a couple of DMS from companies. But these were the normal affiliate ambassador links and not what we actually wanted. What I wanted actually get a paid Instagram brand deal and I could just sit around for weeks on end waiting for a brand deal to come around. Or I could just be proactive and go ahead and DM and email some of these brands about our AI influencer, talking about the benefits of using this account. And so that's exactly what I did. Okay, so I'm going to go email and then DM a couple of brands to test a couple of things. First thing, I want to test the brands even want to work with an AI influencer. I think they should if we pitch this correctly. And, and then secondly, I want to test if brands will even check if we have real or fake followers. I mean, if they don't check. If you have real or fake followers, then that is a massive issue. I mean, think about it. We've spent $20 getting 10,000 followers and if we charge like $200 for a brand deal, we've immediately made like what, $150, $180 in profit in literally a day. And if you were unethical, we would literally capitalize on it. Basically. I think most of these guys will check if we have fake followers, but I wonder if how many people would check and how many people would. So I started DMing a ton of Instagram brands. Some of the bigger brands like Fashion Nova, and also some of the smaller brands that sold jewelry and other women's products. We sent a ton of emails and the template from these emails was pretty simple. We basically sold the idea of an AI influencer being better than a normal influencer, much more efficient, being able to get the job done in literally 24 hours and with none of the hassle. And initially this pitch didn't work. Basically a lot of these brands didn't want to work with us. And I thought that this was because they could tell that we had a bunch of fake followers. But I realized realized that actually that was not the case. People wanted to work with the AI influencer account, but they just didn't want to work with a micro AI influencer because I guess we just didn't have enough followers for us to be worth their time. And so we spot 50, 000 more followers bumping up our follower account from 12000 to now 60, 000. We also bought tens of thousands of likes sending about 12 different emails to different online brands. I finished massive Instagram account in three days. About 20 emails have been sent and we have gotten zero conversions. No brand deals so far. And I don't think it's because these brands have fig big followers. I think it's because I'm overcharged. Media kits, which is basically how much I try to charge these brands, is about $500 for a picture post. So maybe I should decrease that from 500 to maybe $150 and then see if we can actually fool these brands into skipping us a contract. So yeah, my last bet is decreasing my prices and I think 60,000 followers and $150 for a picture. That was a no brainer and any brand would say yes to that. So in order to entice these brands to actually give us their money, we had to decrease the prices and liter another couple of dozens of emails basically saying, hey, we can Promote your restaurants, we can promote your jewelry brand, we can promote your company for only $150. And we knew this was gonna work because, I mean, this is an absolute no brainer if you are a brand. I mean, usually 60,000 follower accounts charge thousands of dollars. We were charging 150 and not even long after making that decision. Okay, so we literally just convinced this brand to give us $300 for an image post. Actually, we didn't even convince them. After sending out email, they immediately came back with like an offer. So that's kind of crazy. We didn't even have to negotiate. So they literally offered us 300 real dollars for 0 real followers. But the thing is, if they just checked if the followers were real or not, just literally spent 10 seconds checking, they would immediately be able to tell that our followers weren't actually real. But they didn't check. And most brands won't check, considering it only cost us $100 to get like 50,000 fake followers. And we could potentially make $300 if we take this brand deal. We just could potentially make $200 in profit. So if you're a brand on Instagram, this should be one lesson you should take from this video. Check if the followers are real, because they might not be. And you could potentially be throwing money away, which I think most of them are. And now there's only one type of person still watching this video. Someone who thinks they could run their own pseudo follower business. You could definitely make a lot of money doing this. The only problem is it would be fraud and you'd probably end up in jail. So unless you want to end up in jail, maybe don't do this. Anyway, watch this video to see another cool way we probably made money online.