Bauer was less than flattered by the invite: it was the third such DM he’d received this week, using the exact same language, from an account that was brand-new. “This is the first time I’ve seen this on Instagram, and at this scale,” he tells WIRED. “I think someone needs to shed light on this as it’s shady and deceiving.”
Like the other accounts linked to the Goose invites, the @lucalepkowski account was created in May 2026. An analysis using the AI Image Detector software found that the profile image—a photo of a college-aged man in khaki shorts on a beach, sipping from a large water bottle—was 80 percent likely to have been artificially generated. Further analysis using Google Gemini also determined that at least part of Luca’s profile photo “was edited or generated with Google AI.”
Chadwick did not respond to multiple requests for comment, nor did anyone else from Goose. But on his Instagram Stories, cofounder Aliagas appears to have advertised multiple job listings for “ambassadors” to help manage various unspecified social media accounts.
The caption of an Instagram story Aliagas posted six weeks ago reads: “Need some help w my new app and you know I always give priority access to these opportunities to my OGs here :)” He listed the details for the “ambassador role,” requiring that they help manage three Instagram accounts four hours a day for two-plus months, with rates ranging from $1,800 to $2,100 a month. “Familiarity with gay culture is a big +. Time to monetize ur traumas :),” Aliagas wrote before signing off with, “And btw, still buying finstas [fake Instagram accounts] for $100 :).”
Aliagas posted another call for applicants for an “ambassador role” for his “new app” three weeks ago, this time asking for a three-month commitment. “We are going big :-),” he wrote. Both Stories are still included in his Instagram Story highlights, under the title “AMBASSADORS.”
It’s not unusual for brands and developers to surreptitiously use AI-generated influencers to promote their products. A recent Guardian investigation quoted a former celebrity manager who now creates such accounts, who estimated that “40 percent to 60 percent of the content out there from some of the big brands” is artificially generated, most of which is not publicly identified as such.
That’s not the same thing, however, as saying such content is aboveboard, says Rob Freund, an advertising and ecommerce attorney. The US Federal Trade Commission has guidelines prohibiting deceptive advertising, such as brands using AI to impersonate real individuals. New York also recently enacted a law requiring that advertisers disclose if their content is AI-generated, and companies face an initial $1,000 fine if they fail to do so.
“If you are creating fake accounts for people who promote a product and explicitly creating a bunch of fake accounts that look like they are users of a product or a service to drive attention or sales to that product or service, that activity is very obviously unlawful under FTC guidelines,” says Freund, stressing this is still the case regardless of whether the app is free. An FTC spokesperson declined to respond to questions from WIRED, saying it “cannot comment on a specific company’s practices.”
According to its content guidelines, Meta, which owns Instagram and declined to comment for this story, requires users to label their content as artificially generated and will take down posts that are not correctly identified as such. But the private nature of this specific marketing campaign in DMs and Close Friends Stories may make it more difficult for the platform to regulate. And as WIRED previously reported, incorrectly labeled AI-generated content often escapes detection, allowing users to believe that accounts that are most likely fake, such as @miles.sumrall’s and @lucalepkowski’s, are the real deal.
Some people, however, clearly aren’t falling for it. “On one hand I’m flattered that I’m their target audience,” Cheam tells WIRED. “But the need to essentially bait gay guys into signing up feels really sketchy.”