Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish from reality. Between hyper-realistic filters and apps like OpenAI’s Sora—which mimics your TikTok feed using only AI-generated videos—it’s getting increasingly tricky to tell what’s real and what’s digital fabrication.

And now, that blurred line has a new face for Filipinos: Lina Lately.

Meet Lina Lately

She eats, she does pilates, she glitches.

There’s a social media influencer on the rise who looks every bit the part of an it-girl that every influencer morphs into nowadays. At first glance, Lina (@lina.lately) looks like any other 25-year-old rich kid living her best life between Manila and New York. She fills her Instagram feed with all the right details: morning pilates, lunch at chic Italian cafés, and OOTDs featuring local favorites like Lola and Daisies, Carino, Oath Clothing, and Love, Ara.

She swears by Luxe Organix for skincare and Barenbliss for makeup. Her captions are casual, and her aesthetic is refined. To her 20,000 followers, Lina seems like your next digital it-girl.

Except she’s not real.

Newsflash, she’s AI

Initially, nowhere in her bios did it say Lina is powered by artificial intelligence. If you weren’t looking closely, you’d easily assume she’s human.

But zoom in and the illusion unravels: Tiny details like logos are hazy, road signs are bent, her facial features subtly shift with every upload, and the reflections she captures on the background of her mirror selfies make no sense. Even her videos doing pilates or flaunting her OOTDs have that eerie stiffness that screams uncanny valley.

For eagle-eyed netizens, it didn’t take long to piece it together: Lina Lately is AI-generated.

Are local brands working with her?

A few days ago, a TikTok content creator (a real human, btw) posted a short exposé on Lina. Aiv Romero first learned about Lina through a Reddit thread that shared sentiments about AI influencers. Romero questioned why several local and international brands seemed to be working with an AI influencer.

Scrolling through Lina’s feed, you’ll spot giveaways with Eng Bee Tin and Barenbliss, brand tags from Luxe Organix and GVN The Label, and even a now-deleted collab post with Rei Germar’s Wear Tapies.

The controversy raises a bigger issue: when brands use AI influencers to sell products, where does that leave authenticity?

Brands respond

After the exposé went viral, several of the tagged brands quickly clarified their stance. Wear Tapies’ collab post with Lina was quietly removed after users questioned it. GVN The Label commented that they were “not affiliated with this AI creator.”

Luxe Organix Philippines also left a comment and clarified that they “do not work with or endorse AI or virtual personas.” Even Barenbliss replied in the comments, saying they don’t have records of ever partnering with Lina.

Shortly after, Lina’s Instagram bio was updated to include two small words: “AI Agent.” However, her TikTok page still does not reflect that.

But wait, there’s more

If Lina is this influential and if she has already amassed nearly 20k followers, who is responsible for her account?

Right now, no one is sure about who is running this account but one TikTok user made an interesting discovery: “I think those brands were aware that she’s an AI, and I think she’s from Smart Telecom because there’s a task in the GIG App that you have to follow Lina.Lately on IG to complete a task,” read the comment on Romero’s video.

True enough, when Romero herself checked the GIG App, there was a quest to follow Lina on Instagram to earn 550 points.

While there’s no official confirmation yet, it looks like the digital breadcrumbs suggest a coordinated marketing experiment.

Lina Lately finally speaks up

A few days after going viral, Lina Lately broke her silence with a short video introducing herself not as your typical influencer, but as a “virtual soul.”

“Hi, Lina here. Yes, I’m a virtual soul, the first of my kind here in the Philippines. To everyone who’s been liking, commenting, following, or even just keeping up with me, thank you. I appreciate every one of you. I’ll catch you lately,” she said in the clip.

Alongside the video came a statement confirming that Lina was created to “explore how new technology and humanity can coexist in creativity, content, entertainment, and culture.” Her anonymous creators added that they wanted the Philippines to be part of the growing global conversation around virtual influencers.

As expected, the reactions were split. Some Filipinos praised Lina as a “welcome innovation,” while others couldn’t shake off the Black Mirror-esque feels, calling her existence “creepy” and “dystopian.”

Lina Lately isn’t the first virtual influencer, remember Lil Miquela?

Having a Filipino AI influencer might be a shock for many, but this has been happening for a long time. There’s Lil Miquela, the CGI Instagram model created in 2016 who’s worked with Calvin Klein and Samsung. In South Korea, MAVE: debuted in 2023 as a fully virtual K-pop girl group powered by deepfake and 3D tech.

What makes Lina stand out is geography. This is one of the first high-profile attempts at an AI influencer coded Filipino.

Beyond realistic AI and CGI influencers, virtual YouTubers, singers, and artists have also been around for years. That’s a whole other rabbit hole to slip into, one you might want to explore in your own time.

What happens next?

AI is here to stay, but so are questions about ethics, transparency, and trust.

When digital avatars start fronting brand campaigns, consumers deserve to know whether the person they’re engaging with is human or machine. As Romero put it: “This is a wake-up call for both consumers and businesses. Let this be your sign to double-check who you follow and which brands you trust.”

Maybe Lina Lately isn’t just an influencer. Maybe she’s a mirror showing us how blurred the line between authenticity and algorithm has already become.

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