Head AI has developed an artificial intelligence platform that standardizes and automates the influencer marketing workflow for brands, agencies, and creators. Founded in June 2024, the San Jose-based startup tackles inefficiencies in a growing industry hampered by fragmented processes, unpredictable pricing, and manual workflows.

“The two challenges in the industry are efficiency and effectiveness,” says Francis Fan Yang, co-founder of Head AI and former Product Manager at TikTok Creator Marketplace. “You have to write the campaign brief yourself, search for influencers, send invites to them manually, write email copies, negotiate the price, etc.,” Francis explains. “When they start to produce the content, it’s been like a month already.”

Head AI serves agencies seeking operational efficiency, large companies looking to scale influencer programs, small to medium-sized businesses without dedicated marketing teams, and creators struggling to secure consistent brand partnerships.

“What we want to build is actually a transparent industry that can help brands and creators really build trust with each other and make it transparent by setting the transparent price among influencers and brands so that we can really scale this industry.”

Francis draws a direct parallel between Head AI’s mission and how Uber transformed transportation: “Prior to Uber coming to the stage, you had to call taxis or cars not regulated by the government or by the system. It’s not transparent at all. But right now, with Uber, it helps you set the price. Every car and every service is valued at a price. We share the same philosophy.”

How Head AI’s Technology Creates Transparency

Instead of addressing individual pain points in the influencer marketing workflow, Head AI has reimagined the entire process through its AI platform. The system operates on multiple levels of analysis to create meaningful connections between brands and creators.

“We use AI to analyze each influencer’s audience based on their content,” Francis explains. “On the brand side, we use AI to analyze websites, we analyze their presence on social media, and the brand voice as well. On one hand, you have influencers’ audience, and on the other hand, you have the brand audience; if you match them, we have a match score as analyzed by AI.”

This analysis-based approach eliminates the subjective judgment that typically characterizes influencer selection. Rather than brands choosing creators based on personal preferences or limited knowledge, Head AI evaluates audience compatibility to identify suitable partnerships.

The platform’s pricing mechanism represents another notable advancement toward transparency. “Our core pricing means pricing something against a value,” Francis explains. “And how it’s influenced or affected by supply and demand.”

Head AI analyzes various factors, including an influencer’s reach, engagement rates, and current market conditions (such as seasonal demand during periods like Black Friday) to determine fair compensation and eliminate the need for negotiations.

The standardization extends to contracts as well. “For lots of companies, it’s hard to go through the whole legal process within the company. It’s such a pain,” Francis says. “But we help standardize the contract. You don’t have to write it yourself; you don’t have to go through the process within your company.”

Expanding Access to Creator Marketing

Head AI’s transparent system opens influencer marketing to previously excluded participants, benefiting both sides of the marketplace, according to Francis.

For small to medium-sized businesses, influencer marketing has often remained out of reach due to resource constraints. “Sometimes they just have one marketer or sometimes they just have one CEO doing everything – product, marketing, etc.,” Francis explains. “Without Head AI, they probably could not do influencer marketing at all because it’s very time-consuming. With Head AI, they just need probably 20-30 minutes to go to the platform, confirm influencers, and check their results.”

For creators, the platform addresses a practical challenge in the industry: the difficulty of securing brand partnerships despite having large audiences. “I worked at TikTok, and even TikTok creators with over 1-3 million followers don’t get brand deals,” Francis says. “They want to get brand deals, but they can’t.”

By creating a more efficient marketplace with transparent pricing and standardized processes, Head AI helps connect these creators with relevant brands. “We are dedicated to providing a platform that can help them get a stable income,” Francis says.

‘Pay for Results’ Business Model

Head AI’s commitment to transparency extends to its business model, which aligns incentives among all participants in the system. Instead of charging upfront fees regardless of outcomes, Head AI has introduced a performance-based approach.

“We pay for results,” Francis explains. “What I mean by that is that you don’t have to pay until the influencer really produces content. So if they fail to deliver, as a brand, you don’t really have to pay at all.”

Francis points out that this model changes the risk calculation for brands considering influencer marketing.

Case Studies

Head AI demonstrated how its system works in a campaign for MetaGPT X, an AI “dev team” platform. The company deployed what they describe as a “creator-centric growth engine” for MetaGPT X. The platform identified and activated tech-forward creators across TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram who could genuinely demonstrate the product’s capabilities. These creators produced content with themes like “I asked AI to build a dating app – and it actually did” and “All-AI team on deck! This platform simulates a full dev team.”

Rather than using generic influencers, Head AI selected creators with audiences that matched MetaGPT X’s target users, primarily indie hackers, AI reviewers, and engineers. The results were more than 1 million total impressions at a cost-per-click of $0.53. The content generated engagement, with comments sections “filled with ‘drop the link'” requests and sign-up conversions from individual videos.

Francis highlights a successful client engagement with MetaGPT, a coding application similar to Cursor. “Within one month, we helped them couple with over 100 influencers,” Francis explains. “The results we help them get are actually CPC under 50 cents.” While Francis didn’t provide industry benchmarks during the interview, this CPC represents notable efficiency for campaigns in the technology sector.

These outcomes support Francis’s conviction that influencer marketing can be approached methodically. “Lots of people think marketing cannot be done scientifically,” he says. “I think previously it was because there was no such platform or product to solve the problem. So that sets the boundary of people’s imagination. With AI, the misconception will be disrupted.”

From Platform to System

Francis’s vision extends beyond creating a mere tool; he aims to establish an entirely new system for influencer marketing. This approach parallels the transformation that has occurred in transportation, rather than focusing on incremental improvements to existing processes.

“We want to make the economy bigger. We want to help the creator economy grow,” Francis emphasizes. “So we don’t only serve a portion of players in this industry; we serve the whole industry.”

The network effects inherent in Head AI’s two-sided marketplace position it for potential growth. As more brands join the platform, more creators gain access to partnerships; as more creators participate, brands find increased value. Francis believes this cycle could lead to notable market impact: “With Uber, you don’t really call taxis. Uber takes like 80% of the market,” he says, suggesting that AI-powered platforms like Head AI could similarly transform influencer marketing in the future.

Challenges and Future Direction

Despite its vision, Head AI acknowledges that not all aspects of influencer marketing can be fully automated. The creative elements of content creation remain inherently human, while the platform focuses on improving the business processes surrounding these creative activities.

Francis’s focus for the remainder of 2025 and beyond centers on growing the platform globally, with particular emphasis on the U.S. market. “In the following year, definitely we’re going to scale this business model to the whole world and bring more value to both the influencer side and brand side,” he says.

As the influencer marketing industry continues to grow steadily, the need for standardization, transparency, and efficiency becomes increasingly important. Head AI’s vision of creating an “Uber for influencer marketing” represents an attempt to address these structural challenges through technology, rather than merely treating symptoms.

“Instead of being skeptical,” Francis challenges potential users, “why don’t you just try it?”

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