Impactful AI awards season is upon us

First came the Miss Artificial Intelligence pageant. Then AI music competitions. Now, there’s an award for AI Person of the Year — perhaps the inevitable next step for the AI ​​influencer economy as it transforms from quaint novelty into a serious, lucrative industry.

The competition, a joint venture between AI studio OpenArt and AI-powered creativity platform Fanvue, with support from AI audio company ElevenLabs, will open on Monday and run for a month. Organizers said the aim was to “celebrate the creative talent behind AI influencers” and recognize their growing commercial and cultural influence.

Contestants will compete for a total prize of $20,000, which will be split between the overall winner and the individual categories of Fitness, Lifestyle, Comedian, Musical Artist, Dancer, and Fictional Cartoon, Animation or Fictional Character. The victors will be celebrated at an event in May, which organizers have dubbed the “Oscars for AI Characters.”

To participate, you must develop your own AI effect on the OpenArt platform and submit it on www.AIpersonality.ai. You’ll be asked to use your social media handles across TikTok, X, YouTube and Instagram, as well as the story behind the character, your motivations for creating them, and details of any brand work.

Among those evaluating the contestants is 13-time Emmy Award-winning comedy writer Gil Reeve, creator of the Spanish AI model. Father Lopezand Christopher “Topher” Townsendthe MAGA rapper behind Gospel singer created by artificial intelligence Solomon Ray. According to a copy of the judges’ briefing that he reviewed EdgeContestants will be evaluated on four criteria: quality, social influence, brand appeal, and the inspiration behind the avatar. Specific points include interacting reliably with followers, portraying a consistent look across social channels, subtleties like having the “right number of fingers and thumbs,” and having an “authentic narrative” behind the avatar.

Matt Jones, head of brand at Fanvue, said the contest is open to creators and newbies alike, though existing AI influencers will still need to submit material produced on the OpenArt platform. Edge.

Although designed to celebrate virtual influencer creators, Jones said participants don’t need to publicly identify themselves. “If the person who created this amazing work doesn’t want anything to do with the press or expose themselves or get their name out there, then obviously that’s fine,” he said. “There will be no need to highlight anyone here. We will just celebrate this work.”

The ability for creators to remain anonymous is strange for a contest that judges originality, especially in an AI-driven influencer ecosystem built on fictional people, fake personas, and fabricated backstories. This anonymity has also helped graft flourish with little accountability, from White nationalist rapper Danny Bones to MAGA girl fantasy Jessica Foster.

There are also familiar ones, including persistent questions about authenticity, whether AI-generated work, or even something like it, has been lifted from real creators, and whether these tools are simply reproducing the same old biases in artificial form. Regulator Fanvue has already faced criticism for this in the past: in 2024, a Guardian columnist described The “Miss AI” pageant is something that “takes all the toxic gender standards of beauty and combines them into a completely unrealistic package.”

For Fanvue’s Jones, creators inevitably leave something of themselves in the AI ​​characters they create. “You can only put a little bit of yourself into the stories you tell and the characters you create,” he said, urging creators to “lean into that.” This idea seems right at home in the influencer economy: it’s not quite real, but a form of artificial authenticity that the internet already knows how to handle.