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The paper aims to understand anthropomorphism concerning people’s perceptions, opinions, and emotions toward AI-based virtual influencers. PRAW (Python Reddit API Wrapper), a Python package was used to facilitate access to Reddit’s API to retrieve the comments and posts from Reddit servers. The comments from November 2018 to March 2024 were collected. A search feature was employed to search for the keywords ‘virtual influencers’, and ‘AI influencers.’ Based on 50,939 comments that were extracted were used for analysis. The findings show that audiences anthropomorphize AI Influencers’ marketing activities and share a common passion for online games. The findings also show that the audience perception of AI-based virtual influencers has seven key categories: uncanniness, promotional activities, esthetics, entertainment, gaming and recreation, identity and social life, and shared passion. The findings also show that the audience has a high level of trust and anticipation.
Nukhu et al. (Mon,) studied this question.