IAIA DOESN'T EXIST: HOW I CREATED AN AI INFLUENCER (AND WHY WE SHOULD CARE)

This is Iaia. She's my… "daughter." She's a modern-day Frankenstein grilling pancetta and ribs at the Sagra del Folpo. With one small detail: Iaia does not exist.

He's not a real person. He's never touched a grill. He's never worn that cowboy hat. Iaia is an artificial intelligence I created this in two hours to promote our Ranch dive bar during the Sagra del Folpo. And almost everyone fell for it.

The Story of an Involuntary Deception

Let's start from the beginning. The Ranch It's our dive, our grills are a focal point of the festival. We needed a bit of marketing, something fresh to draw people in. The idea was simple: create a friendly face, an "influencer" who would invite people to come. A beautiful girl always attracts, there's no denying it. But I didn't want to stop at the banal: I wanted to create a experiment. You can find it here: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1881876332368403

The result exceeded all expectations. The video in which Iaia he says “I'll wait for you this evening at the Ranch, even if it rains” It went viral in our area. Thousands of views, comments, people asking who it was, where to find it.

NO, I didn't do it with ChatGPT
The first question everyone asked me was: “Did you do it with ChatGPT?” The answer is: Absolutely not. I haven't even opened ChatGPT. This is the crucial point that many people don't understand: creating believable AI isn't about typing a prompt and hitting enter. It takes skill, artistic vision, and time. A lot of time.

Here is the complete workflow I followed to create Iaia:

1. Apple Photos – I started with a photo of the real space: the Ranch's grids during the festival. First step: remove people from the background to have a clean base to work from.​

2. Pixelmator – Photographic post-production. Adjusting contrast, balancing colors, and preparing the scene to accommodate an element that technically doesn't exist but must appear to belong within that lighting context.​

3. Google Image Flash 2.5 – Here comes the magic (or horror, depending on your point of view). Creating Iaia's character. It wasn't a stroke of luck: it took me 7-8 attempts to find "the right Iaia," the one with the expression, posture, and look I was looking for. Cowboy hat, plaid shirt, overalls. The perfect look for a festival.​

4. VEO 3.1 – Creating movement. Iaia had to look alive, not a static photograph. VEO 3.1 is a Google Labs tool that allows you to animate images with impressive realism. Eye movements, micro-facial expressions, natural gestures.​

5. Flow by Google Labs – Generating the final video with perfect lip sync. This is where the work becomes surgical: every frame must be consistent with the audio.​

6. Logic Pro – Sound design and voice recording. I took care of the sound effects, Iaia's voice (yes, that's AI too), and the warm, welcoming tone it needed.​

7. CapCut – Creating moving text. Those dynamic subtitles that make videos more engaging and accessible even without sound.​

8. Final Cut Pro – Final editing. Bringing together all the elements: video, audio, text, transitions. The final touch to make everything believable and fluid.​

Two hours of work for eight seconds of video. This is the difference between a lazy prompt launched on any app and a result that deceives reality. It's not a question of accessible technology: it's a question of skill, artistic vision, and commitment. AI is a tool, but the creator still makes the difference.

When AI Invades Your Real Space

There's a reason the reaction was so strong. As I said, we're all accustomed to AI content on social media: virtual influencers with millions of followers, perfect avatars advertising products, more or less harmless deepfakes. We scroll through them, perhaps pause for a second, then move on. They're distant, abstract, belonging to the digital world.​

But Iaia was different. Iaia was at our grills, to the our tavern, at the our festival. It was in the physical and social dimension we know, frequent, and consider "home." It wasn't a distant experiment: he was a non-existent character introduced into our real daily life. And this generated a different kind of cognitive shock.

I think for many it was the first time they realized the real possibilities of artificial intelligence. No longer a game for geeks or a phenomenon for Californian tech-bros. But something concrete, tangible, that can enter your spaces, your relationships, your memories. If Iaia can seem real at the Sagra del Folpo, what's stopping someone else from creating nonexistent characters in far more delicate contexts?

Frankenstein Rides Again

I created Iaia for marketing purposes. To attract people, to do something fun, to experiment with tools I find fascinating. But beneath the ironic surface, there was another goal: to give a warning on the ethical implications of these technologies.​

Iaia is harmless. It's a smiling girl inviting people to eat ribs in the rain. But the technology that created it is the same as malicious deepfakes: Fake videos of politicians saying things they never said, elaborate scams with cloned faces, non-consensual pornography, industrial-scale disinformation. You don't need ChatGPT. You need skills, time, and intention. And I've proven that with two hours of work, you can fool hundreds of people who know you, who know your space, who trust you.

The line between creativity and manipulation is very thin. Today I created an influencer to sell sausages. Tomorrow someone could create nonexistent witnesses for a trial, fake friends for romance scams, cloned politicians for propaganda. Technology has no morals: we decide how to use it. And the problem is that most people don't even know all this is possible.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein wasn't a warning against science. It was a warning against science. without responsibility. Victor Frankenstein creates life and then abandons his creation, refusing to face the consequences. Iaia is my creation, my modern Frankenstein. And unlike Victor, I want everyone to know she exists, how she was made, and what she means.

The Question That Remains

Finally, I've solved the mystery. Iaia doesn't exist. But how many other "Iaias" are out there that no one has revealed? How many faces, voices, and stories we believe to be real are actually carefully designed digital constructions? How many times have we already believed something false without knowing it?​

I created Iaia for marketing purposes. But also to make you ask: What if next time you're not lucky enough to find out the truth?​

Welcome to the age where beauty can be created. But also the lie.

I seek beauty, everywhere. And if I don't find it, I create it. Even when it doesn't exist.