Mia Zelu, a stunning blonde influencer with piercing blue eyes and flawless skin, recently turned heads with her stylish photo series from Wimbledon.
To the casual scroller, she looks like just another fashion-savvy content creator enjoying the London Grand Slam – an event known for attracting A-list spectators.
However, a closer look reveals something more sinister: Mia is entirely AI-generated.
Her profile, which already boasts more than 160 000 followers, openly describes her as a “digital storyteller & AI influencer.” Though the creator behind the persona remains a mystery.
Her Instagram page is filled with enviable, bucket-list stuff that is so lifelike that many users admit they were fooled at first glance.
In her latest upload, Mia is posing with her sister Ana at the Belgian Grand Prix, with the inspirational caption “Amid all the noise and speed — find your line. The one only you can drive.”
Ana, meanwhile, has been active on Instagram since January 2024, and has amassed nearly 270 000 followers.*
In fact, Ana introduced Mia on 14 March 2025 with a post that read, “Meet my wonderful sister Mia @miazelu and my favorite photographer! She finally decided to open up her Instagram, so show her some love!”
In the accompanying photo, the influencer sisters are sitting together at a cafe in Spain. Or so viewers are led to believe.
‘Impossible beauty standards’
More concerning than the fake accounts, as some commentators have pointed out, is that Mia and Ana belong to a new wave of AI influencers promoting an unattainable, Eurocentric standard of beauty.
“AI is shaping our world – and with it, our perceptions of beauty,” said Dominique Baxewanos, creative director at ad agency VML South Africa.
VML (who work with Dove) have developed a world-first Chrome extension that makes it possible for anyone to generate realistic images of beauty that reflect all ages and ethnicities.
“AI tools carry with them a significant problem: their outputs reflect the biases inherent in the data on which they’re trained,” Baxewanos added.
“Ask an AI to generate a ‘beautiful woman,’ and the result is often a filtered, Western-centric ideal.”
Fake influencers are earning up to R207 000 per month
For the Zelu sisters, it’s not just the pictures that are convincing, but also their computer-generated personas.
And they’re not the only ones grabbing attention.
Ana and Mia have joined a rising wave of virtual influencers – ever since Lil Miquela first burst onto Instagram in 2016.
Miquela now commands an audience of over 2.4 million, while Spain’s Aitana Lopez, created in 2023, has nearly 400 000 followers.
According to Lopez’s creators, the AI model can earn up to €10 000 (R207 00) a month, with the average usually around €3 000 (R62 000) per month.*
With creators staying mostly behind the scenes, AI influencers like Mia and Ana Zelu are blurring the line between digital fiction and real life.
*at time of publishing
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