- Last updated
- 13 October 2026
- Nature
- AI persona
- Niche
- Education
- Style
- Cartoon
- Debut
- 2019
- Origin
- Paris, France
- Created by
- Fondation de France
Summary
Bee Influencer, known as B, is a virtual influencer who is, in Fondation de France's own words, "a bee activist who is, herself, a bee". Launched in Paris in spring 2019 (virtualhumans.org dates her first appearance to 28 April 2019; her X account joined in May 2019), B posts as the first influencing bee and tells followers that the more of them she has, the more brands will want to work with her and the more money goes to bee protection. The French philanthropic network Fondation de France introduced the BEEFUND on 20 June 2019 and sponsors B; funds go to pollinator-friendly agriculture, restoring wild and domestic bee habitats, and research on pesticides and bee health. Euronews reported about 102,000 Instagram followers in July 2019, and by December 2020 virtualhumans.org counted nearly 300,000, over ten brand partners (La Poste, Airbnb, Galeries Lafayette, Guerlain, Ricola, Burt's Bees and others) and three funded projects. The campaign is credited to the agency Publicis Conseil for Fondation de France and won a Bronze Lion at Cannes in 2021. In April 2021 the account staged B's death and a donation appeal around its first anniversary. Its latest Instagram post is from April 2022, its bio now links to a Carrefour NFT page, and virtualhumans.org marks B inactive.
Is Bee Influencer AI?
Yes. B, the Bee Influencer, is a virtual bee character, not a person: Fondation de France created her in Paris in 2019 to raise money for bee protection, and the Cannes Lions entry credits the agency Publicis Conseil with the campaign.
No human was ever behind B's face. B is a cartoon bee who posts selfies and lifestyle shots. Fondation de France's own blog calls her "a bee activist who is, herself, a bee", and virtualhumans.org's profile says B is "not human" and that the foundation created both the BEE FUND and the @bee_nfluencer account. The Cannes Lions archive lists the campaign under Digital Craft as work by the Paris agency Publicis Conseil for Fondation de France. It won Bronze in 2021. So the character was made by an organisation and an agency, not by an influencer playing a role.
The pages agree on this, and the strongest of them comes from the operator itself. Interviews keep up the fiction: virtualhumans.org's 2020 Q&A is answered by "B" in character. None of the pages names a performer, voice or model.
Two things are still unknown. No page names the people at the foundation or the agency who wrote the posts or made the images. And no page says how the images were made. B dates from 2019, so she is a designed digital character. Nothing shows she was made with today's generative AI tools, so "AI" here means a virtual persona rather than a human influencer.
Evidence
Fondation de France says it sponsors a new social-media influencer called B, "a bee activist who is, herself, a bee", who campaigns to save the bees through @Bee_nfluencer.
fondationdefrance.orgvirtualhumans.org's profile says B, "while not human", is the first influencing bee, and that Fondation de France created the BEE FUND and @bee_nfluencer.
virtualhumans.orgThe Cannes Lions archive lists BEE_INFLUENCER under Digital Craft as work by Publicis Conseil, Paris, for Fondation de France, a Bronze winner in 2021.
lovethework.comvirtualhumans.org calls B the first cause-driven, animalistic being in the virtual influencer space and runs an interview in which B answers in character.
virtualhumans.org
Assessed 9 October 2026
Audience over time
How their audience has moved
Followers · all platforms
207k
▼ 115 (−0.1%) since 9 Oct 2026
Instagram 201k · Facebook 5k · X 684
Added up from 9 Oct 2026, once every platform had been read; tracked since 5 Oct 2026. Each platform is read about once a week.