That Sassy Grandma on Your Phone? She Doesn’t Exist.

You might’ve seen her. Or someone like her.

She’s all over Instagram and TikTok. An older woman in a bright pink designer suit, giving hilariously blunt life advice to strangers on the street. She’s witty. She’s fearless. She says things your actual grandmother would never say out loud (but might be thinking).

Millions of people adore her. She has over two million followers on Instagram alone.

And she is completely, 100%, not real.

Meet “Granny Spills”

Her name is Granny Spills, and she’s what’s known as an AI influencer. That means every pixelA pixel is like a tiny dot that helps make up the pictures you see on your phone, computer, or TV. T... More of her… her face, her pink outfit, her voice, her hand gestures… all of it was generated by artificial intelligenceArtificial Intelligence (AI) is basically when computers get smart—really smart. Imagine if your c... More. She was never born. She’s never had a birthday. She has never actually worn a Chanel suit or spoken to another human being on the street.

She was created in 2025 by two young men in Miami, Eric Suerez and Adam Vaserstein, who run a small company called Blur Studios. Using AI video tools from GoogleGoogle is a multinational technology company known for its internet-related products and services, i... More and OpenAI, they can produce a finished Granny Spills video in about five to ten minutes. No cameras. No film crew. No actual grandmother.

According to a TIME Magazine feature, they even use AI to write her scripts before feeding them into the video generators.

The result looks disturbingly real.

Why Should You Care?

Here’s the thing that makes this story matter for folks like us.

If you scrolled past a Granny Spills video on your phone, would you know she wasn’t real? Be honest. Most people can’t tell. A study from music streamingStreaming refers to the process of transmitting or receiving multimedia content, such as audio, vide... More service Deezer found that 97% of people couldn’t tell the difference between AI-generated content and the real thing. When told they’d been fooled, more than half said it made them uncomfortable.

And Granny Spills isn’t the only one. There’s an entire wave of these AI characters flooding social mediaSocial media refers to online platforms and websites that enable users to create, share, and interac... More right now. Some look like attractive young women. Some look like fitness instructors. Some look like… well… grandmothers.

The creators behind these characters don’t need to pay a real person. The AI doesn’t get tired, doesn’t need a day off, doesn’t have opinions of its own. It just pumps out content, all day, every day. One of Granny Spills’ creators put it bluntly: these characters say outrageous things that a real person would be too embarrassed to say in public, and audiences love it.

The Part That Gets Under My Skin

I’ll be straight with you. This one bothers me.

Not because the technology is impressive… it is. And not because the videos are entertaining… some of them genuinely are. What bothers me is that Granny Spills works because people trust grandmothers. The whole appeal is built on the warmth, honesty, and wisdom that we associate with real older women who have lived real lives.

But there’s no life behind those eyes. No decades of experience shaping that “advice.” No real grandmother who raised kids and buried friends and learned things the hard way. It’s a character designed by two guys in their twenties to get clicks and land brand deals.

That’s not wisdom. That’s a costume.

And it raises a question we’re all going to have to grapple with: if you can’t tell what’s real anymore, how do you decide what to trust?

How to Spot an AI Fake

The good news is that AI-generated video still has a few tells, even as it gets better. Here are some things to watch for:

Look at the hands and fingers. AI still struggles with hands… you might notice extra fingers, odd bending, or fingers that seem to melt into objects.

Watch the background. People and objects in the background of AI videos often shift, blur, or disappear between frames. A real video has a consistent, stable environment.

Pay attention to the eyes. AI-generated faces sometimes have a slightly glassy or unfocused quality. The blinking can look unnatural… too regular, or not frequent enough.

Check for a label. Both TikTok and Instagram are starting to require creators to label AI-generated content. Look for small text or tags that say “AI generated” or “Made with AI.” It’s not always there, but it’s becoming more common.

And when in doubt? Google the name. A quick search for “Granny Spills AI” would have told you everything you needed to know in about three seconds.

The Bigger Picture

Granny Spills currently has over two million followers on Instagram, with more across TikTok and other platforms. Her creators are actively seeking brand deals so that companies can use this fake grandmother to sell you real products.

Meanwhile, TikTok has actually flagged some of her content as “unoriginal”… which is a polite way of saying a computer made this and we noticed. But the videos keep going viral anyway.

We’re entering a world where the person giving you advice on your phone might not be a person at all. Where that friendly face might be a mask designed to earn someone else’s money. And where the qualities we value most in real people… experience, honesty, warmth… are being copied and pasted by machines.

Technology is amazing. But it’s only trustworthy when we know what we’re looking at.

So the next time you see a sassy grandmother going viral online, maybe ask yourself one simple question first:

Is she real?