Virtual influencers in marketing research: trends, gaps, and future directions

Virtual influencers are fictional characters created by computers to interact with audiences on social media platforms. These virtual entities are increasingly being used in marketing campaigns by brands to reach a broader audience and create unique and engaging content. The growing number of virtual influencers has attracted the interest of researchers, leading to an increase in studies on their use, interaction, and impact. This study aims to explore the literature on virtual influencers in the academic field and uncover trends in this area to guide future researchers. In this research, studies in Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus were analyzed using bibliometric analysis. The studies obtained from the two databases (after removing duplicates) were combined, and a total of 250 studies were included in the analysis. Analyses conducted using RStudio covered the number of studies and citations over the years, the productivity of authors and countries/institutions, collaborative works, utilized sources, keywords, and emerging themes. The findings indicate a significant temporal gap in virtual influencer research. The conceptual and theoretical frameworks were first established by pioneering studies in 2016. Technological developments, particularly in artificial intelligence and the metaverse, together with brands’ intensive collaboration with virtual influencers, have led to a surge in publications in 2023 and a shift towards more empirical, data-driven research. This study is the first to discuss the concept of digital influencer from a holistic perspective, elaborates the studies on the subject based on some criteria, and identifies research gaps for future researchers.