When Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the former speaker of the House, attended the Outside Lands music festival last month in her home district of San Francisco, she took a selfie with a popular influencer who has 2.4 million followers.

“me vibing to @gracieabrams and i look up and it’s literally @speakerpelosi,” the influencer, who goes by Lil’ Miquela, captioned the photo, in which the two are seen smiling.

The catch, of course, is that Lil’ Miquela isn’t real. She is one of a slew of influencers created through artificial intelligence who have gained popularity in recent years, despite the fact that they don’t exist.

Mia Zelu, a blond-haired, blue-eyed A.I. influencer with 167,000 followers, recently made headlines for “attending” Wimbledon. And a recent report by the online creation platform Kapwing found that computer-generated celebrities are amassing millions of followers — and dollars — for the teams behind them. Lu of Magalu, a Brazilian A.I. influencer with more than eight million Instagram followers who serves as the voice of the Brazilian retailer Magalu, rakes in $34,320 per post, while Miquela makes about $73,920.

Introduced in 2016, and considered by many to be the “original” A.I. influencer, Miquela has appeared on magazine covers, released music and served as the face of campaigns for Calvin Klein and Prada, all while purporting to be a Brazilian American teen from Downey, Calif. (She now identifies as 22.)

The account is run by a team at the tech company Dapper Labs, which specializes in creating video games and collectibles. The team creates the story lines, images and captions that bring Miquela to life, and builds partnerships with brands, celebrities and politicians that give the impression Miquela exists beyond the computer screen.