How to Create an AI Influencer and Make AI Influencer Videos, Step by Step

To create an AI influencer, you need one image of a person, and then videos that keep that person the same every time. The image matters most. In our own work with the product, the more the person in the image looks like a real person, the more real the person in the video looks, and a too-perfect face gives you videos that look generated. This guide covers the whole path, start to finish: make the face, bring it into Riffkit as a character, then make AI influencer videos by putting that person into formats already winning on TikTok, Reels and Shorts.

One thing to know first: Riffkit does not design a face from traits. The face is made outside Riffkit, in any image tool, or it is a real photo. Riffkit takes over once you upload it.

How to create an AI influencer in three steps

1. Make or choose the face image. This happens outside Riffkit.
2. Add it to Riffkit as a character. One form with four required fields, then an automatic review that usually takes under a minute.
3. Put the character into a video. One page and one submit, and the video takes a few minutes.

Already have the face? Start at step 2.

Step 1: Make the face, outside Riffkit

There are two routes, and Riffkit treats them the same way.

A new face. Make the image in whatever image tool you like. Generate a few candidates, pick one, and stop generating. From here on the person is that saved file, not the words you used to get it, so keep the original somewhere safe.

A real photo. The person does not have to be invented. Your own photo works, and so does a photo of a model or creator who has agreed, so an AI influencer can be the on-screen version of a real person. Riffkit's Terms set the condition: for any real person other than you, you need that person's informed, written consent for this use, and you keep it on file. If the person is you, using the feature is your consent.

What makes an image work as a character's face:

• One person, alone in the picture. A headshot, a half-body shot and a full-body shot are all accepted. A collage or a sheet with several poses is not a good face image.
• Facing the camera, and clear. The form asks for one clear, front-facing photo.
• Real, not polished. Natural skin texture with pores and slight imperfections, not airbrushed skin. For a full-body image, a real body and not an idealized shape. The person in your videos takes after this image, so between two candidates pick the less retouched one.
• Clearly an adult. The Terms do not allow depicting anyone under 18, real or presented as real, and that covers an invented face that looks underage.
• Nobody else's likeness. No lookalike of a celebrity or of another creator.
• A file that uploads. JPG, PNG or WebP, under 30 MB, at least 300 pixels on the shorter side, in a normal portrait or square shape (not a long strip). An iPhone HEIC photo has to be exported as JPG first.

If you plan to use Swap on close-up, talking-to-camera videos, go one step further: the face large in the frame, on a plain background. That is the picture Riffkit's page on replacing the person in a video says works. A card with several poses usually fails to change the face in a close-up.

Step 2: Add the face to Riffkit as a character

In the Riffkit app, open Characters and click New character. The form has four required fields and two optional ones:

• Name.
• The image from step 1.
• Gender: Female or Male.
• Age range: Young, Middle-aged or Senior.
• Persona (optional): a few words on who the person is and how they talk. It shapes how the scripts sound, not how the person looks. How to write a good one is in the persona brief guide. If the character is a real person other than you, their written consent has to cover the persona you write for them too.
• Voice sample (optional): if you want a specific voice, upload 4 to 15 seconds of clean speech as an mp3 or wav file, up to 5 MB, with no background music or obvious noise. The character's spoken lines in Adapt and Create videos are then voiced after that sample, and how closely it matches can vary by engine. A Swap does not use it: a Swap follows the source video's sound, and on some engines the swapped person's on-camera lines get a new voice. For one fixed voice, use Adapt or Create. Without a sample the videos use a default voice. The rule for the face applies here too: your own voice, or the voice of someone who has agreed in writing.

After you save, the image goes through an automatic review before the character can make any video. It usually takes under a minute, and the status updates by itself. If the image is refused, you see the reason and can retry or upload a different one. A pass means the character can now make videos. It is not a check of your right to use the face, which stays with you.

At the time of writing, a new account holds one character with one face image. A refused image does not use up that place, and you can delete the image and upload a different one. An account that has paid holds more: 50 characters, with up to 10 face images each. These numbers can change, and the app tells you when you reach the limit.

Step 3: Make your AI influencer's videos from formats that are already winning

Open Make videos to make the first AI influencer video: choose how to make it, choose a source and the character, and submit. You get one video for each character you pick.

A source can be a template from Riffkit's library, a link to one TikTok video, or a video file you upload, which is how a Reel or a Short goes in. At the time of writing it can be up to 45 seconds long. A longer one is refused, not trimmed. Videos use credits, counted by the second, and the page shows what a video needs before you submit. A Swap uses more credits per second than an Adapt, so make your first source a short one. For choosing a source, see how to find winning TikTok videos.

Adapt is the default for this job: a new story and new footage, starring your character. You pick the language (nine are offered) and the shape: 9:16 unless you choose 3:4, 1:1, 4:5 or a landscape ratio. When the script has captions, they are burned into the video and timed to the speech. To be sure of them, write what they should say in the optional direction box, which also lets you steer the story in plain words: write what changes shows how. Music can carry over: when the source has a music track, Adapt lays it under your new video by default. Choosing Reference original BGM asks for a new track in the same style, and with that choice the voice sample is not used for that video.

Swap keeps the video and changes who is in it. Camera work, cuts, timing, language, music and shape follow the original, and the result is exactly as long as the source. The source has to show a person for your character to take the place of. The sound follows the source too: on some engines your character says their on-camera lines in a new voice, and on others the original voice stays. The whole video is made again, it is not a face pasted onto old footage, so watch it before you post: a face may not change fully. Riffkit's own advice is to keep Swap for a video you have the right to use, and to choose Adapt for another creator's video. The reasons are in can you legally remake a viral TikTok.

Create needs no source. Write one idea and Riffkit writes an original video around your character. You can set the length from 4 to 45 seconds or leave it to Riffkit, which stays within 45 seconds and within what your credits cover.

Each finished video comes with a suggested post caption, hashtags and a cover frame. You download it and post it yourself.

On consistency, the honest bar is recognizable, not identical in every frame. The same approved image is the reference for every video, which is what keeps the person from changing the way one described only in words does. More on that in keeping the same AI character across every video.

Doing this responsibly

Four rules, all from Riffkit's Terms:

• Say it is AI. Where a platform or the law requires AI-generated content to be labeled, applying the label is your job, and the videos must never be presented as real recordings. A natural-looking person is about quality, not about hiding anything. For TikTok, read the AI label guide before you post.
• Adults only. No persona under 18, real or presented as real.
• No impersonation. A real person appears only with their written consent, and never as a deceptive stand-in for a public figure.
• Nothing sexual or intimate involving a real person.

One more honest note: a consistent person in a proven format is a good start, not a promise of views. Our own numbers are in do AI videos actually get views.

Start with the image

Spend your time on step 1, because every video takes after that one image. Then add the character in Riffkit and make the first video from a format that already won. If you work in a coding agent, the Riffkit skill makes the videos once the character exists. The character itself is set up in the web app.