“I’m Emma, your AI travel influencer from German Tourism”: These are the words that start a video on social media with which the German National Tourist Board (DZT) introduced its new AI influencer yesterday.
The blonde avatar is intended to be an “innovative, interactive brand ambassador” that will encourage travelers to have “real holiday experiences and a personal touch in Germany,” according to the GNTB. The reactions on Instagram raise doubts about the success of the strategy.
Hundreds of negative comments
Comments can be almost entirely negative about the first video of the artificial blonde, which is said to be based on “a modern, cosmopolitan, mid-30-year-old Berliner who is at home in the digital world.”
“I’m afraid of it”, “How about real influencers?”, “That will certainly attract artificial tourists, but they probably won’t fill any hotels” – hundreds of comments from real users now say something like this .
The official GNTB account tries to counter this with a standard answer – Emma should not change influencers, but complement them. Emmatravelsgermany, as the AI influencer’s account is called, only responds to the very few positive comments.