We’ve all come across an Instagram profile that stops us in our tracks – but have you ever felt like someone on social media was simply too perfect?

Perhaps you’ve just stumbled upon Aaditya Iyer.

When the handsome ‘entrepreneur’ shared his first photo on Instagram in early February, a growing band of followers in his native India swooned.

In less than two weeks, Iyer amassed a legion of more than 10,000 followers – drawn to his aesthetic travel shots and homespun pearls of wisdom about ‘embracing life’ and ‘stepping outside your comfort zone’.

There’s just one catch. Iyer isn’t real.

In what could only be described as a seriously effective viral marketing campaign, Iyer is not a real person – he’s an AI-generated bot dreamt up by one of India’s leading matchmaking services, BharatMatrimony.

And those heartbreakingly tender lines about searching for the love of his life? They were written by ChatGPT.

BharatMatrimony’s Chief Marketing Officer, Arjun Bhatia, declared the campaign was all about leveraging the use of technology to reach India’s booming youth demographic.

“We are very happy that we are the first ones to do something like this using the power of fantastic technology,” Bhatia told Campaign India.

“Hopefully, we catch the attention of youngsters who are getting into the (age) bracket of getting married.”

The big reveal was unveiled on Valentine’s Day when the man himself – the initial letters of his first and last names spell out ‘AI’ – was unmasked as a clever combination of images generated by artificial intelligence platform Midjourney and copy written by ChatGPT.

Too good to be true? Aaditya Iyer may have broken a few hearts, but he’s also a prime example of what can be achieved when the latest technology and smart marketing combine.

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