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Does it ever feel like your inbox is filling up with emails that don’t sound quite human?
You may be right. Last week, I received an email from a publicist identified as “June Barton,” whose address indicated that she worked at a firm called VectorGuideHQ.
The message, which read like any one of the countless PR emails in my inbox, was seeking coverage for a wellness app called RiseGuide. Barton offered to set me up with an account and introduce me to the startup’s founder. When I didn’t respond, Barton followed up.
“Glad to set you up so you can try it, or put you on a call with the founder,” Barton wrote. “Lmk!”
RiseGuide is a real company. But June Barton is not a real PR rep, or even a real person.
For one thing, her headshot — showing a light-eyed, soft-smiling brunette — was clearly AI-generated. Though not visible in the tiny email window, when I opened her profile picture in a new tab, I could see that the image had failed to cut out a watermark disclosing that it was downloaded from the site “this-person-does-not-exist.com,” which traffics in AI-generated faces.
“Generate random human face in 1 click and download it!” reads this-person-does-not-exist.com. “AI generated fake person photos: man, woman or child.”
Even more peculiar was that when I looked up the VectorGuideHQ site in Barton’s email address — [email protected] — it redirected to a United Kingdom-based PR company called Movchan Agency. Barton, I soon learned, was one character among a roster of fake personas used by Movchan to pitch journalists on stories.
When I reached out to the firm’s clients, they said they were unaware of the practice.
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