Abstract

Virtual influencers are increasingly used in influencer marketing, yet it remains unclear whether trust generated by an artificial persona can be transferred to endorsed brands in the same way as trust generated by human influencers. This study examines artificial intelligence (AI)-mediated trust transfer among female consumers by comparing virtual and human influencers across four social media platforms. Drawing on source credibility, parasocial interaction, social presence, trust transfer, and brand attachment perspectives, we propose that influencer type is associated with brand outcomes through three observable social-cue pathways: perceived authenticity, parasocial interaction, and social presence. These cues are expected to be associated with influencer trust, which is then associated with brand trust, brand attachment, purchase intention, and recommendation intention. Using 78,432 female consumer comments from Xiaohongshu, Instagram, Weibo, and Douyin, matched across 12 virtual–human-influencer pairs, we construct text-derived linguistic indicators—proxies rather than validated psychometric constructs—through keyword dictionaries, sentiment classification, and standardized composite scoring. The results show that human influencers are associated with higher perceived authenticity, parasocial interaction, and social presence than virtual influencers. The strongest association in the model is the trust-transfer path from influencer trust to brand trust, and the indirect path is associated with a substantial share of the observed covariation between influencer type and brand attachment. Product type further qualifies these patterns: the human-influencer advantage is stronger for hedonic products than for utilitarian products. These findings suggest that virtual influencers should not be understood as universal substitutes for human influencers. Instead, their effectiveness depends on whether AI-mediated personas can generate the social and authenticity cues that the literature associates with trust transfer in a given product context.

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