AI-powered influencer discovery means you can type the kind of content you’re looking for and a tool provides a list of creators who create similar posts. Such search capabilities can be extremely helpful in discovering niche, storyfit creators that might be off your radar otherwise.

Here are the eight best tools with AI-powered influencer discovery (along with the other key features they offer).

1. Modash

Best for: Shopify brands looking for one tool to manage their entire influencer marketing strategy

What is it: Modash is an end-to-end influencer marketing tool for Shopify brands. You can use Modash to find creators, analyze their profiles, track content, measure campaign performance, and handle payments. With the Shopify integration, you can also automate creating affiliate links/codes and order products for influencers.

Free trial: Yes, for 14 days (with usage limits)

Price: from $199 per month (billed yearly), or $299 per month (billed monthly)

Platforms: Instagram, TikTok, YouTube

AI influencer search features: Using Modash’s AI search, you can search for creators using natural language. Just type what you’re looking for – like “mom playing with her kid” or “training for the first marathon” – and the tool will show creators who create similar content.

You can also upload images as a visual reference to find influencers who match that same aesthetic. For example, I uploaded a home decor aesthetic image to find creators who match that vibe.

There’s also the option to filter for content recency so you only see posts (that match your criteria) published in the last 3, 6, 9, or 12 months. This might be relevant specifically when your need is time-sensitive. For example, if you want to reach pregnant moms, you don’t want to see content created a year ago.

You can refine your creator search even further by layering on additional filters like:

• location
• growth rate
• follower count
• fake followers
• engagement rate
• active creators only
• audience demographics
• …and more
  

That’s not all: you can even open an image in the first round of results and pick out specific objects in that picture to look for. For example, if you find a wine bottle in an influencer post, you can search for that exact same bottle and see other creators who have posted with it.

Modash's AI search uses a database of every public creator with 10k+ followers across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube – so you never have to worry about exhausting the influencer database.

(The "normal" filter search uses an even bigger database, with every public profile with 1k+ followers.)

Try using Modash’s AI search today.

Other key features: Outside of AI influencer search, Modash can also help you with:

• Influencer vetting: check an influencer’s past collabs, fake followers, performance, top content, and more.
  
• Outreach: integrate your inbox (Gmail/Outlook) and reach out, follow-up, and mark the right status for creators right from Modash.
  
• Tracking: store all influencer content related to your campaigns (yes, Instagram Stories, too) without requiring influencer authentication.
  
• Ecommerce functionalities: avoid wasting your time on repetitive tasks and create discount codes/UTM links, ship products, and track performance automatically.
  
• Relationship management: get all the data you need on a creator – previous conversation, performance, internal notes from colleagues – in one window.
  
• Payment: pay creators worldwide on time automatically. Set up custom tiers for affiliates and let influencers choose their preferred currency.

2. Sprout Social (formerly Tagger)

Best for: Existing Sprout Social users or using one platform for your influencer & social marketing efforts

What is it: Sprout Social is a popular name in the social media marketing world. After acquiring Tagger, it also has a dedicated influencer marketing tool. You can use it to find creators, practice outreach, and manage campaigns.

Free trial: Not available

Price: Unlisted

Platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitch, X/Twitter, YouTube

AI influencer search features: You can search for influencers by describing the type of content you want them to create. AI suggestions can help you expand your search to find similar posts on related topics. Their AI assist also gives each creator a brand fit score, although it’s unclear how they measure this number (and whether it’s reliable).

One con is that the database is also quite limited, with just 10M creator profiles. And this is in their traditional search – the AI search database might be even more limited. So, you might not be able to find niche creators or get a lot of diversity in your search results.

Other key features: Sprout Social offers a complete influencer marketing management solution – allowing you to source creators, create proposals, track content, and manage campaigns. You can also purchase just the influencer marketing tool if you don’t want to invest in the social media management suite.

3. Favikon

Best for: B2B brands wanting to explore influencer marketing

What is it: Favikon is an influencer marketing tool that can help you find relevant creators across various platforms and vet their profiles. You can also invite applications from their vetted creators (although they only have about 25k+ influencers right now) and communicate with influencers using Favikon itself.

Free trial: Yes, for 7 days, limited to 10 results per AI search

Price: Ranges from $99 – $449 per month

Platforms: Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X/Twitter, LinkedIn, Twitch, Snapchat, Pinterest, Substack

AI influencer search features: Similar to other tools on this list, you can describe exactly what you’re looking for in simple language to find influencers that match your criteria.

But when I tested the tool and layered just one geographic filter to the AI search (home decor influencers from Asia), the results didn’t match the location requirement. The results were of home decor creators from Spain, France, the U.S., etc. This might be because Favikon has a smaller database of 10M creators – so you might not be able to find creators meeting niche requirements.

Another thing to note is Favikon’s credit-based system. For every AI search, you get 25 results costing you one favicoin. The more you multiply this, the more the cost increases. The lowest tier plan offers 100 favicoins – the equivalent of 2500 creator profiles in AI search. If you use their adjacent features like lookalikes and radar for finding more creators, that also costs favicoins.

Other key features: Favikon offers a few unique features – especially premium filters (like a creator with a podcast, or newsletter, or LinkedIn Top Voice badge) that can help you find creators with niche expertise. You’ll need additional tools to track influencer content automatically, measure their performance, and create ROI reports, though.

4. HypeAuditor

Best for: In-depth influencer audience quality analytics

What is it: HypeAuditor is an end-to-end influencer management software that can help you discover creators, vet influencer profiles, and manage campaigns. It has one of the largest influencer databases for its traditional search (still a fraction of Modash, though), but it comes at a steep price.

Free trial: Yes, on a case-by-case basis

Price: Not publicly available, but their Basic plan alone (which doesn’t include AI-powered search) starts at $299/month. According to G2, HypeAuditor is 27% more expensive than the average mid-market influencer marketing platform

Platforms: Instagram, YouTube, TikTok

AI influencer search features: HypeAuditor’s AI search is currently only available for Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. Soon, it might expand to other channels it supports – specifically Twitch and X/Twitter.

The AI search feature analyzes images, captions, and account bios/descriptions to understand a creator’s content and provide accurate results. You can add additional 35+ filters in addition to AI discovery to refine your search.

HypeAuditor boasts a database of over 219.2M creators, but it’s possible that the high number is restricted to the traditional search and AI search has significantly fewer creators – especially since Twitch and Twitter are unavailable in AI search right now. AI search capabilities are also restricted to the higher-tier plans.

Some reviews of HypeAuditor complain about the lack of availability of their desired influencer profiles & the amount of time it takes to add them into the database to assess their quality.

Other key features: HypeAuditor helps steer clear of low-quality influencers using HypeAuditor’s Audience Quality Score (AQS), which analyzes how many “real” followers a creator has, the volume of comments they receive, and their average number of likes.

They’ve also released more AI features like AI Scout and AI Coach to help you find the right creators, prepare influencer briefs, and brainstorm your overall strategy.

You can also use HypeAuditor for other parts of your work – like outreach, payments, and campaign tracking. It can’t track Instagram Stories, but you can automate tracking for other creator deliverables.

Related reading: 11 HypeAuditor Alternatives For Better Influencer Marketing

5. Storyclash

Best for: Finding lookalike influencers based on images and product URL

What is it: Storyclash is an influencer marketing platform that can help you find relevant creators, conduct a competitive analysis, track influencer content (including Instagram Stories), manage campaigns, and measure ROI.

Free trial: Not available

Price: €499 – €1899+ per month

Platforms: Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Snapchat

AI influencer search features: Storyclash’s AI search features go beyond the “describe your ideal creator’s aesthetic/vibe in words.” You can upload an image as a reference point to find influencers with similar visual creatives. There’s also the option to add your product’s URL and use AI to find creators who create content around similar categories.

When I tested the AI search demo, the tool didn’t meet the location requirement (see image above). I’m guessing it would’ve worked more accurately after applying a location-specific filter (not available in the demo).

Other key features: Storyclash is almost a complete influencer marketing tool, except for the payment feature. You’ll need an additional tool to pay your creators on time. Beyond that, you can use it to communicate with creators, manage collaborations, and track campaign performance.

With their market research tool, you can also reverse engineer the strategies of your competitors and find influencers who post similar content.  

Related reading: 10 Storyclash Alternatives for Influencer Search, Management & More

6. Archive

Best for: Combining your UGC and influencer marketing efforts

What is it: Archive can help you collect user-generated content, track campaigns, snoop on your competitors’ influencer marketing programs, and search influencers using AI. It’s not a complete tool – you’ll still need other tools for outreach, briefing, communication, and payments.

Free trial: Not available

Price: Not shared publicly

Platforms: Instagram, TikTok

AI influencer search features: Archive’s AI-powered influencer search allows you to search their database using natural language and visual references. You can also find a list of lookalike creators with one button.

The drawback is Archive has a small database (10M creators), which significantly shrinks your potential influencer pool. In additional filters, there’s no option to set a fake followers limit either.

Other key features: Archive is also great for social listening and UGC management. You can automatically track content across Instagram and TikTok (including Stories) as long as your brand is tagged (@mention) in the post.

But if your customers share a post about you and they have a private account, Archive can only collect Stories from them. On TikTok, it can collect content from private accounts only if both accounts (you + customer) follow each other.

You can also manage asking for usage rights right from this tool (using DM automation) – an excellent option if you often repurpose content created by influencers or customers.

7. Grin

Best for: Finding influencers using an agentic AI assistant

What is it: Grin is an influencer marketing solution that can help you run your campaigns from start to end. You can find creators, analyze their profiles, measure results, and pay influencers – all under one tool.

Free trial: Yes, for 30 days

Price: Not publicly shared, but Capterra says the plans begin at $999/month

Platforms: Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube

AI influencer search features: Grin doesn’t have the typical AI search features, but an agentic AI assistant that can help you find relevant influencers for your campaigns. Describe your goals, requirements, etc., to Gia and evaluate the search results.

The traditional search database is of 190M creators and you can also find lookalike creators. But it’s unclear if the tool is analyzing this amount of influencer profiles in AI search.

Grin also supports inbound influencer search – you can create landing pages to invite creators to collaborate with you and track influencers who are already talking about your brand using its social listening features.

Other key features: Grin can help with many tasks – including influencer outreach, affiliate management, and performance measurement. The AI assistant is also useful in drafting outreach emails, spotting top-performing influencers, and more. You can manage your whole strategy using Grin, but you might find the database a little restrictive after you’ve exhausted all the options.

Related reading: 12 GRIN Alternatives For Better Influencer Marketing & Discovery

8. Influencer Marketing AI

Best for: Complete influencer marketing tool with competitive insights

What is it: Influencer marketing AI (IMAI) is an influencer management software that helps you find creators, outreach, send briefs, track content, measure performance, and pay creators.

Free trial: Not available self-serve

Price: Not available on the website. InfluencerMarketingHub cites $12k-$30k per year.

Platforms: Instagram, TikTok, YouTube

AI influencer search features: You can use simple language to activate IMAI’s AI search – like “NYC female influencers with over 100k followers” or “Creators in the UK with a GenZ audience” – and get results that meet your criteria. You can also layer more filters by continuing to use the AI chatbot to refine your search even further.

But remember the AI search in IMAI isn’t actually a visual search – you can type and the tool just automatically applies the filter in their traditional discovery tool.

IMAI also provides a TL;DR summary of each influencer so you can spot any red flags early on and decide whether or not to shortlist them. This AI summary also includes a brand safety score and a risk score.

Other key features: Apart from all the influencer marketing functions, IMAI can also help you stack up your performance against competitors – you can check your pie in the share of voice, influencer performance, and overall engagement.

You can track if a topic is suddenly tracking in your industry, if people are tagging you, if your competitor is seeing a sudden spike in mentions, and the top creators in your niche.

AI influencer discovery is still (rapidly) evolving

AI influencer search is still in its growth phase. Most influencer marketing software are still continually polishing and developing new features to make AI discovery stronger and more accurate.

Picking the right tool isn’t just about looking at AI search features, though. Think about the other features you can benefit from and how fast the AI capabilities are improving for the software you shortlist.

Take Modash. It’s not just an influencer discovery tool – it’s a complete influencer marketing solution that can help you:

• Find relevant creators from its vast 350M+ influencer database
• Search for influencers among your existing customers and followers
• Discover lookalike creators who match your top-performing influencers
• Analyze potential brand-fit influencers without having to outreach them first
• Source influencer emails, track outreach, automate follow-up, and track creator content

Plus, Modash’s AI search is adding new cool features (like lookalike search) at whip speed.

And that’s not even including the world-class Shopify integration and seamless influencer payments. Try Modash at no cost and check out the tool for yourself.