Microsoft is investing in influencers such as Alix Earle to narrow the difference with ChatGPT.

Microsoft could use the help. The company recently said its family of Copilot assistants attracts 150 million active users each month. But OpenAI’s ChatGPT claims 800 million weekly active users, and Google’s Gemini boasts 650 million a month. Microsoft has an edge with corporate customers, thanks to a long history of selling them software and cloud services. However, it's faced difficulties penetrating the consumer sector, particularly among individuals younger than thirty.

“We’re a challenger brand in this area, and we’re kind of up and coming,” Consumer Chief Marketing Officer Yusuf Mehdi said in an interview. Mehdi aims to convince influential figures to adopt Copilot as their preferred chatbot, subsequently leveraging their reach to promote the assistant to their vast audiences. According to him, Microsoft is already achieving greater value from influencers compared to traditional media, though he offered no specific data to support this claim. Mehdi and the influencers featured in this report also refused to disclose their compensation for Promoting Copilot.

Many companies have tied their success to influencers lately. In 2020, Dunkin’ Brands Group Inc. Collaborated with prominent personality Charli D’Amelio to introduce a specially created beverage named “The Charli,”, which she promoted to her vast audience. Numerous online personalities frequently promote items available on Amazon.com Inc.’s e-commerce platform, and this month the corporation extended invitations to several digital creators for The Council of Fashion Designers of America awards ceremony. NYC. Through her online renown, Kim Kardashian, arguably the foremost influencer, has transformed her Skims underwear and clothing business into a worldwide powerhouse.

Anindya Ghose, a marketing professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, stated his surprise regarding Microsoft's utilization of lifestyle influencers to promote Copilot. He understands, however, the appeal of their devoted fan bases to the company. “Even if the perceived credibility of the influencer is not very high but the familiarity with the influencers is high, there are some people who would be willing to bite on that apple,” Ghose said in an interview.

He suspected Microsoft would abandon the initiative if it failed to gain momentum. “So I’m fairly certain it’s working,” Ghose said. Is there room for improvement? And I suspect in a few months, they'll likely start experimenting with AI influencers for comparison purposes.

Microsoft's strategy of employing non-technical individuals as representatives aims to bolster its initiative to market its chatbot as a universal life coach. Or as Mustafa Suleyman, Chief of Consumer AI, stated in a recent essay, an AI companion that “helps you think, plan and dream.”

The company recently enlisted social media star Alix Earle, who became famous sharing personal details of her life in her popular Get Ready With Me videos. The 24-year-old New Jersey native has amassed a combined 12.6 million followers on her Instagram and TikTok accounts and parlayed that virality into a spot on the current season of Dancing With the Stars. In June, Earle appeared with Mehdi on a panel about influencing at the prestigious Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

Earle and Microsoft collaborate on concepts, yet she retains the liberty to improvise. For example, on the way to a shoot in May, Earle asked Copilot how to appear younger because some of her followers had said she looks 40. The chatbot told her to “focus on a good skincare routine.” The video generated 15.4 million views on Earle’s TikTok, almost twice the number of people who follow her on the social media app. The video was captioned by her with the hashtag #copilotpartner., using the identifier “Copilot is my mentor & therapist”.

Mehdi cited a video Earle posted about the new Copilot Groups feature as evidence that the campaign is working. “We  can see very much people say, ‘Oh, I’m gonna go try that,’ and we can see the usage it’s driving.” The video generated 1.9 million views on Earle’s Instagram account and 7 million on her TikTok. Earle declined to comment for this story.

Brigette and Danielle Pheloung are the first to acknowledge that they are unlikely spokespeople for Copilot. The 28-year-old twin sisters have attracted a combined 3.4 million followers on Instagram and TikTok with videos about fashion and beauty. “Who would have thought that a girl who was getting thousands of views on hair rollers is now promoting AI through Microsoft Copilot,” Brigette said in an interview. “It’s crazy.”

The Pheloungs recently enlisted Copilot's assistance to generate outfits inspired by the '70s and '80s for New York Fashion Week, aiming to capture the interest of women between 18 and 34 years old. Following the bot’s suggestions, the twins dressed in their best impressions of late 20th-century attire. No homage to the 1980s would be complete without shoulder pads, and Copilot suggested that Danielle stuff socks into her shirt to create the desired effect.

Several TikTok users responded enthusiastically to the video:  “copilot is the bessstttt,” one said. “Just downloaded. We could have used this in school,” said another.

While watching these videos, it can be easy to lose sight of the fact that the Copilot brand is most familiar to office workers, who use it to organize huge amounts of information, summarize conference calls and fetch information they might previously have found with Google. But that’s not really the point of this campaign. “The whole idea about Copilot is really about empowering you to be the best you,” Mehdi said.

Brandon Edelman, who goes by Bran Flakezz online and has 1.7 million followers on Instagram and TikTok, filmed professional videos with the Copilot team in Los Angeles. In them, he chats with Copilot about such relatable topics as dating, planning a trip and how to get over imposter syndrome. Most of the videos were posted on Copilot’s own TikTok account, which has a relatively meager 176,000 followers.

In one, Edelman asks Copilot a series of questions, including: “If I were to, you know, croak, would I still have to pay off my credit card bills?” Copilot came back with a definitive, “Yes, debts don’t disappear.” Microsoft captioned the post on TikTok, “With Copilot, there’s no such thing as a cringe question.”

So far, the company’s Copilot influencer campaign has attracted big names and generated hundreds of millions of views. The question is whether it will help Microsoft narrow the usage chasm between Copilot and ChatGPT. Gartner analyst Jason Wong is skeptical. “It’d be hard-pressed for them to surpass the consumer ChatGPT at this point,” he said.