Understanding Older Adults' Experiences of Support, Concerns, and Risks from Kinship-Role AI-Generated Influencers

2026-02-26

AI Summary

This study investigates how AI-generated influencers on Chinese short-video platforms—portrayed as familial figures such as “AI grandchildren”—shape older adults’ emotional experiences and perceived social support, while also uncovering associated risks. Through a combination of social media content analysis and semi-structured in-depth interviews, analyzed via thematic coding, the research reveals that these AI personas effectively fulfill elderly users’ needs for companionship and information by leveraging kinship-like visual and conversational cues. However, they may also foster emotional substitution, dependency, and intergenerational relational imbalances. This work is the first to elucidate the complex interplay between AI-assigned kin roles and real family dynamics, situating AI design within the Chinese sociocultural context and offering empirical insights and design implications for culturally attuned social AI systems that balance emotional support with risk mitigation.

Technology Category

• Humans and AI: Emotional Intelligence
• Philosophy and Ethics of AI: Societal Impact of AI
• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science

Application Category

• Social Networks and Social Media: Generative AI / large language models and their impact on social systems
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Trust and reliance of crowd workers and data experts on GenAI
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Social recommender systems and personalization for the social Web

Abstract

AI-generated influencers are rapidly gaining popularity on Chinese short-video platforms, often adopting kinship-based roles such as AI grandchildren to attract older adults. Although this trend has raised public concern, little is known about the design strategies behind these influencers, how older adults experience them, and the benefits and risks involved. In this study, we combined social media analysis with interviews to unpack the above questions. Our findings show that influencers use both visual and conversational cues to enact kinship roles, prompting audiences to engage in kinship-based role-play. Interviews further show that these cues arouse emotional resonance, help fulfill older adults' informational and emotional needs, while also raising concerns about emotional displacement and unequal emotional investment. We highlight the complex relationship between virtual avatars and real family ties, shaped by broader sociocultural norms, and discuss how AI might strengthen social support for older adults while mitigating risks within cultural contexts.

Problem

• AI-generated influencers
• older adults
• kinship roles
• emotional resonance
• social support

Innovation

• AI-generated influencers
• kinship roles
• older adults
• emotional resonance
• social support