Rise of the Virtual Superstar and why you will love them eventually

This week I want to dive into an industry that is close to my heart; entertainment. For the people that don’t know. I started my career in music, first by organizing festivals and events to later management of artist. After that I dabbled into sports and gaming too. The art of entertainment always has my interest and attention.

The industry has changed a lot already. The superstars of today are very different from when I grew up. The internet changed everything as we know. Streamers are todays global superstars and their power is real. Again shown, most recently, by the The Sidemen Charity Football Match.

The near-annual event started in 2016 as way for UK creator super group the Sidemen (aka KSI, Miniminter, Zerkaa, TBJZL, Vikkstar123, Behzinga, and Wroetoshaw) to play some competitive football in front of a live audience of super fans with the proceeds going to charity.

By 2025 the event has turned into a tentpole in the creator space with heavyweight participants from all around the globe. Here's how it's scaled:

• 2016: 15,000 in attendance // £110,000 raised
• 2017: 27,000 in attendance // £210,000 raised
• 2018: 14,000 in attendance // £65,000 raised
• 2022: 27,000 in attendance // £1 million raised
• 2023: 67,000 in attendance // £2.4 million raised
• 2025: 90,000 in attendance // £4.7 million raised

The 2025 event drew a peak concurrent viewership of 2.75 million with an average of 1.7 million concurrent viewers. They sold 90K tickets physical attendee tickets and gathered 17 million post event views in only five days. Almost all global Youtube/Internet stars joined, including Ishowspeed, Kai Cenat, Mr Beast, Logan Paul and more.

The results are mind-blowing, not to mention the numerous videos on Instagram and TikTok that went completely viral, racking in hundreds of millions of views.

This raises a question, what comes after global Youtube superstars? My answers would be: virtual AI agent superstars. I think we will see, at least one, global superstar that is completely AI driven, autonomous, both virtual and physically embodied. Selling out venues and racking billions of views online.

Let’s look at the different ways this can come about.

Social Media: We have already seen what effect AI will have on social media, from two different sides. First off, the AI Agents that went completely crazy on X (Twitter) the last few months. I have mentioned them multiple times with aixbt becoming the most successful one, currently sitting at 498.000 followers. Its focus is sharing hyper relevant industry information at incredible speed.

At the moment most these agents are text based, it is an LLM combined with proprietary (and extra) data in order to service a certain use case. But let’s think about that a little further. It is, in my humble opinion, a matter of time before we see these characters come to live with having way more capabilities in terms of content creation. Video generation, image generation, live streaming, music, coding, and more. The only thing that is then missing is a (pre) defined character. If I was a character designer by craft, I knew what I would do rightttt now! That is; writing an incredible character, a story line, a history, all together creating the coolest character I could imagine, all to use that to eventually train an AI model that I can then turn into an agent.

Eventually you will have the ability to truly build such an agent and set it free on all social platforms where it can engage with fans and, most importantly, fans can engage with the character. 24/7, it won’t sleep. An interesting question that just popped in my mind is about ownership and/or revenue streams. What if your character becomes a star and Pixar wants to turn it into a movie? (I mean, why couldn’t this happen?):

• Does Pixar go and message the character and make a deal with it somehow.

• Does it go to its creator (if known).

The first option would be possible if there is a crypto wallet attached to the AI character, something we have already seen happen too. (As a reminder: AI Agent Luna paid another agent 1 USD to generate an image, the AI Agent gave its wallet address and generated the image after it got paid - for the full story check edition 6 here).

The other example of where we are heading is with the success of some of the virtual influencers we know. I am talking about characters like Lil Miquela, Lu of Magalu, Shudu and many others. They have gathered millions of followers across Instagram, TikTok and Youtube. Meaning there is clearly a market for following non-human characters on social media. When this became a thing a few years ago and people found it weird, I immediately had to think of the fact that we have been “following” non-human characters forever already. When I grew up, I loved Winnie The Pooh and Donald Duck taught me my first English. So, what’s the difference now that they have Instagram accounts? The good thing to keep in mind though, with the three above mentioned virtual influencers, is that they are developed, created and carefully maintained by people. Very different from the AI Agent characters I mentioned earlier.

Adding to these virtual influencers, I would like to also briefly mention gaming characters who have become massive brands in their own rights. This goes as far back as Mario and Luigi and has not stopped since. With the ever growing influence of gaming this is also something that will continue.

The future? It makes total sense to me that the above two trends will merge and that will only skyrocket their growth, influence and impact.

Because what if anyone can build a longterm “relationship” with their favorite character? What if you can WhatsApp message Lil Miquela to ask her for fashion advice or help you pick a picture to post? And she can have this conversation with millions of people at the same time. (Yes, feels a lot like the movie Her — AGAIN).

Physical: but let’s go beyond the virtual realm and discuss how these virtual AI characters could become physical as well. The first obvious one is of course robotics. It is as “easy” as adding the AI model behind the character to a fully functional AI driven robot, to then make it sound like the character. Kinda crazy, but let’s not go there yet haha!

I heard another great idea though as someone is developing a videogame with AI driven NPC’s (non-playing-characters). Because these NPC’s are now AI driven they can have in-depth conversations about basically anything and not only that, when you close your game and come back a few days later, it knows exactly what you guys discussed last time. Very different from the NPC’s now that you can only say a few, pre-scripted, things to in order to then get a scripted answer in return. This is going to be the standard for gaming, 100%. But this is not why I wanted to mention this, the cool thing is is that this company is trying to connect the virtual NPC to a physical toy. This could unlock that you have a conversation with your fav NPC in the virtual world and can continue the conversation offline in a physical form, with the toy. I get that this is probably focused on kids, but it is pretty awesome to think about what type of storytelling possibilities this unlocks.

I mean let’s be honest, who did not want their Furby, Tamagotchi, or Pokemon to be actually “alive” when we were kids? (yes I wanted to be a Pokemon trainer soooo bad 🤣 )

The last obvious one is the rise of AR/VR/MR glasses and headsets, but also hologram technology. We already have great teases of what is to come for both. First off, hologram tech. We already had a small preview of Tupac on Coachella, but did you know ABBA has been doing a bunch of “hologram shows” in London for a while now? What started in 2022 with just a few committed shows has turned into hundreds of shows, now already planned out all the way to October 2025. They sold 3 million tickets (until December 2024) and it contributed a whopping 1.4 Billion Pounds to the UK economy. We gifted the show/trip to my Mom, who went with my brother. They both loved it and were amazed by the tech. It is safe to say this has been a massive success.

Now fast forward the development of this technology 5 years and the possibilities are endless. Why wouldn’t we go to a show by an incredible AI Agent character who generates awesome music? It does become a big question who owns what, who organizes what and so forth, very strange hahah! For music, there will definitely be a long and harsh period of push back against AI generated music and “AI artists”. The market is never wrong though so let’s see if an artist can actually catch storm and generate a hit. I truly believe that it’s only a matter of time.

Another great example is the massively successful band Gorillaz, who have always had virtual characters. At the end of 2022 they took things to a new level by doing an augmented reality show at Time Square in New York, put together with Google to show off Geospatial technology. Meaning, the shows was only visible at a certain time, on a certain spot (Time Square).

Same as hologram. Fast-forward five years and who knows you can probably buy at home performances of your favorite AI characters that look incredibly real. Great entertainment!

For brands it is pretty obvious to me that, just like you now make brand deals with influencers, you will close influencer deals with AI Agent characters in the future. Maybe directly with the AI itself or its creator, but your brand will be represented by virtual characters eventually. Brands will also, probably, launch their own brand characters. I wonder who the first one will be to completely set the AI “free” instead of controlling every content the character published. A great way for disruptors to change the game forever if you ask me!

All off the above trends and observations lead me to believe that having an AI Agent Virtual Superstar is a very safe bet to make. You can also clearly tell by reading (and for me when writing) it that there will be a lot of questions on how this will exactly happen but I also believe that people will always find a way to figure things out. Maybe the biggest question of them all, will its creator have a “on-off” button? 😅 

Weird, exciting, all of it at the same time but again, as I remind myself and you all often, it is about opening our minds to what will be possible and see how we can flow with it and/or utilize it to our own benefit.

Newsletter upgrade ideas!

A different section than you are used to but I would love to ask for your feedback as, in the end, I am doing this for you all and to share as much value as I can! It’s been officially four months now since I have sent out the first one and I have really liked it. The feedback has been great, same goes for the opening rates so I guess you find value in it as well. Now I have two ideas:

Industry specific AI interviews: I would like to (briefly) interview people who are prominent in their specific field and focus on two questions mostly 1) how do you already use AI in your field/company and 2) how do you see the future of your industry?

I think it could be interesting to see how many people already implement AI in their own way and although not every person will be active in the same industry as you (the reader) are, I bet it can give you ideas as well. The other thing I find interesting is challenge people a bit on where this is, possibly, heading. In short: asking someone in the recruitment business if they agree that their work will disappear in 5-10 years and if not, why not, etc.

WhatsApp community: I have been thinking of starting a WhatsApp community and invite you all to join. For a couple of reasons:

• Discuss the newsletter with you, ask me (or each other) questions, challenge my thinking etc.

• Receive more feedback & possible ideas of what you want to see more off (or what you definitely do NOT want to see anymore 😉)

• Share more “breaking” news, updates, releases and more. Basically if I find a cool tweet, or a cool example, I can easily drop it in the community. There is so much that happens that I hardly can discuss it all in a weekly newsletter.

My big ask for you now is to click one of the two options below!

Thank you, love you all! ❤️ 

Here are some of the latest announcements and other things that I found interesting this week (underscore means clickable!):

• Anthropic CEO, Dario Amodei said that in the next 3 to 6 months, AI is writing 90% of all the code in the world and in 12 months, nearly all code may be generated by AI. That is faster than what many thought, but crazy? Maybe. Even if he is wrong in the timeframe, this is an inevitable future if you ask me. See the full interview below.

• Another wake up call for brands (and creators?) as Google updated its Gemini 2.0 Flash model. Google’s video (and image) generation tools have been so good lately, they are really kicking ass. See attached image for an example in which you can swap out products in/out easily. More wild examples here (click).

  

• It seems like the European Union is speeding up their Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) plans and are planning to launch it in October of this year. I find this terrible, I find this alarming, this is everything we DON’T want. Please do not this is similar to crypto currencies. In short: Bitcoin and Ethereum are decentralized, there is no intermediary if I want to send you any of them all over the world and nobody can stop me from doing so. The opposite is true for a CBDC, they basically can see (and control) everything you do with your “digital euro’s”. So i’ll say it again: F*CK THIS!

• Lex Fridman has hosted a conversation with Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India. The largest country in the world by population. An incredible varied conversation where they discuss geo-politics, his approach to leadership, what it really means to run a 1.4 billion people democracy, values for life and more. Highly recommend!

• Nvidia’s GTC event is in full effect and that always means big announcements from, probably, the most important company in the world at the moment. One of the big announcements is that Nvidia has officially partnered up with GM to develop a fleet of self-driving cars. I think self-driving cars are a no-brainer as it will definitely bring down accidents and death tolls, something we all want I guess? The weird battle with it is though, that the media make such a massive (negative) story out of it when a self-driving car is involved in any accident that people feel the opposite. In 2021, 1.19 million people died in a car accident. Now let’s say we can bring this down to 500.000 people, but 85% of those accidents happen with self-driving cars. Would you then be for or against self-driving cars? Glass half full, always 🙂.

• To continue on our humanoid robotics edition, check out this latest demo video from the OG; Boston Dynamics. They used motion capture suit data (that people wear to create video games and CGI movies) to improve the movement of their robot. Please do click and check the video, how it walks, runs, rolls, it’s incredibly human.

• Ending this week’s newsletter with more positivity, following up last week’s newsletter! A very interesting cancer breakthrough in China: According to Columbia University, 10-20% of transplant patients face organ rejection. Chinese researchers turned this reaction into a cancer treatment by engineering a virus that tricks the body into attacking tumors as if they were pig tissue. This crazy approach had a 90% success rate, curing even advanced cervical cancer. Full original study source here (click). We WILL cure cancer one day!!

PS... If you’re enjoying my newsletter, will you take 6 seconds and refer this edition to a friend? It goes a long way in helping me grow the newsletter (and help more people understand our current technology shift). Much appreciated!

PS 2... and if you are really loving it and want to buy me some coffee to support. Feel free! 😉 

^{Who am I and why you should be here:}

^{Over the years, I’ve navigated industries like advertising, music, sports, and gaming, always chasing what’s next and figuring out how to make it work for brands, businesses, and myself. From strategizing for global companies to experimenting with the latest tech, I’ve been on a constant journey of learning and sharing.}

^{This newsletter is where I’ll bring all of that together—my raw thoughts, ideas, and emotions about AI, blockchain, gaming, Gen Z & Alpha, and life in general. No perfection, just me being as real as it gets.}

^{Every week (or whenever inspiration hits), I’ll share what’s on my mind: whether it’s deep dives into tech, rants about the state of the world, or random experiments that I got myself into. The goal? To keep it valuable, human, and worth your time.}