Virtual K-pop Groups List: PLAVE and Groups Like Them, Real People or AI

Last updated: 26 October 2026. Album sales are Hanteo Chart (한터차트) first-week figures as reported in Korean press; agencies, debut dates and status come from Korean agency announcements and Korean news reports listed in the sources at the end. Where we could not confirm a number, we left it out.

The short answer. The active virtual K-pop groups split into two kinds. Real people behind an avatar (live motion capture or VTuber-style): PLAVE (플레이브), by far the biggest, and Isegye Idol (이세계아이돌). AI-built or fully virtual characters: Eternity (이터니티), MAVE: (메이브), silent since 2023, and SM's solo act naevis (나이비스). Newer agency groups such as SKINZ (스킨즈), MY:RAKL (미라클) and OWIS (오위스) have not said publicly how their members are performed. No 2026 disbandment has been announced, but several early groups have simply gone quiet.

That split matters. It explains why PLAVE sold 1,322,973 copies of its fifth mini album HYPERDRIVE in its first week in October 2026, a career high, while the most "AI" of the early groups released little or nothing new. And it is no longer a niche: a Korean critic counted 10 virtual groups among the 45 idol groups that debuted between January and September 2026.

PLAVE Caligo Pt.2 (Photobook ver.) — the 1.25-million-first-week album, as a physical release on AmazonAffiliate link. As an Amazon Associate, EpicKor earns from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.

The Virtual K-pop Groups List: Real People or AI, and Who Is Still Active

Checked 26 October 2026. "Latest results" lists only figures we could confirm in Korean sources.

The column that matters is the fourth one. "Virtual" covers three different things: a real person wearing a digital mask (PLAVE, Isegye Idol), a character whose look and voice are built by software (Eternity, MAVE:), and a company character attached to a human group's story (naevis). Fans and critics treat those three very differently. Newer debuts such as L.I.N.C (링크), SLIKT (슬릭트) and KiePi are covered in the 2026 section below, because we could not yet confirm enough about them to rank them.

PLAVE: Real People, and the Real Chart Numbers

If you only learn one name from this list, make it PLAVE — and if you searched for groups like PLAVE, the honest answer is that none of the others has its numbers yet. The five members are Yejun (예준), Noah (노아), Bamby (밤비), Eunho (은호) and Hamin (하민). They debuted on 12 March 2023 with the single ASTERUM. They perform with real-time motion capture: the singing, talking and dancing are a real human performance happening behind the avatar, not pre-rendered animation. The members write and produce much of their own material.

Their sales record, using Hanteo's first-week counts as Korean press reported them:

The Billboard 200 entry made PLAVE the first Korean virtual group on Billboard's main album chart. They have also won TV music show trophies since 2024, including MBC's Show! Music Core (for "WAY 4 LUV" in March 2024 and "Pump Up The Volume!" that August). We found no fully AI-generated group that has done either.

The business is real too. Korean outlet MTN, citing VLAST's figures, reported revenue of ₩45.4 billion in 2024 and ₩85.5 billion in 2025, with a 2025 operating profit of ₩20.2 billion, up from ₩11.4 billion of revenue in 2023. HYBE and YG Plus both took minority stakes in VLAST, as VLAST's CEO Lee Sung-gu said in April 2024,, and on 12 August 2025 Seoul's mayor named PLAVE the first "Startup Seoul" ambassador at City Hall.

PLAVE in Person: Gocheok, Then a Stadium

A virtual group's reach does not stop at streaming. The 2025 Asia tour DASH: Quantum Leap ended with an encore in Seoul on 21–22 November 2025 at Gocheok Sky Dome. Both nights sold out, and PLAVE became the first virtual idol to hold its own solo concert there (Isegye Idol had played the venue that May, as part of a festival).

In 2026 they went bigger. The first world tour, KEEP IT MANIC, opened on 12–13 September 2026 at Incheon Munhak Stadium (인천문학경기장 주경기장), the group's first stadium and first outdoor show. Tickets were sold through NOL Ticket. From there the tour ran through Kanagawa, Kaohsiung, Bangkok, Singapore (17 October) and Taipei (23–24 October). As of 26 October the remaining dates are Macao (31 October–1 November) and the Pasadena Civic Auditorium in the Los Angeles area on 14 November.

For a foreign fan, the practical point is this: these are real, ticketed concerts. You are watching a live performance projected on stage, not a playback. For how Korean concert crowds behave once you are inside, see our guide to Korean concert sing-alongs and fan chants.

Isegye Idol: Six Streamers Behind the Avatars

Isegye Idol (이세계아이돌) belongs in a different category. The six members are Aine (아이네), Jingburger (징버거), Lilpa (릴파), Jururu (주르르), Gosegu (고세구) and Viichan (비챤). They are real streamers who perform live behind 3D avatars. The group was put together by the streamer Woowakgood (우왁굳) and released its debut single "RE:WIND" on 17 December 2021. This is VTuber culture, not agency idol training. When Twitch left Korea, Woowakgood announced in January 2024 that he and the group would move to AfreecaTV, now called SOOP, around February.

What they have done is real:

• Melon. In 2023 the webtoon OST "LOCKDOWN" put them on Melon's "Millions" list (멜론의 전당), for releases that pass a million streams within 24 hours, the first virtual artist there. "KIDDING" followed, and Korean press counted them as a three-time entrant by 2024.
• Gocheok. On 17 May 2025 they closed the multi-artist Isegye Festival 2025 at Gocheok Sky Dome with the festival's finale, an "Isegye Idol Part" of about 130 minutes that CGV relayed live to about 30 cinemas.
• First mini album. Be My Light (November 2025) topped Yes24's weekly album chart on pre-orders before it was even released.

Earlier versions of this guide said Isegye Idol "sold out Gocheok as a solo show". That overstated it: it was a festival they closed with the finale set (singer Sunmi headlined the same day), not their own concert. As of 26 October 2026 we found no new Isegye Idol album or concert announced in Korean press, and no disbandment either.

SKINZ, MY:RAKL and OWIS: The Next Groups Like PLAVE

If you are looking for groups like PLAVE, these three are the closest in format: agency-run virtual groups with releases and TV stages. Unlike PLAVE, their agencies have not said publicly whether real performers drive the avatars live, and none is near PLAVE's sales yet.

• SKINZ (스킨즈), a seven-member boy group from Bridge Entertainment, debuted on 10 April 2025 with "YOUNG & LOUD". It performed at 2025 SBS Gayo Daejeon on 25 December, previewing "WHY U MAD", released its first mini album SKINZ IS SKINZ in March 2026, and was reported to have entered Billboard's Pop Airplay chart and Mediabase's Top 40 radio chart. Its first official fan club, KINDY (킨디), opened on the Bstage platform in May 2026.
• MY:RAKL (미라클), from Accord Entertainment (founded June 2025), debuted on 26 January 2026 with "별들에게 물어봐" and has released a digital single every month since, the latest "구름보다 빠르게" on 30 September. A new member, Jiun (지운), joined in August, and in September the company raised ₩2 billion in a pre-Series A round from Smilegate, CNT Tech and SM Culture Partners.
• OWIS (오위스), a five-member girl group from all my anecdotes, debuted on 23 March 2026 with the eight-track mini album MUSEUM. The name stands for "Only When I Sleep". It was directed by Lee Hae-in (이해인), who worked on Kiss of Life's preparation, and three members have writing credits.

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MAVE: and Eternity: The AI-Generated Side of the Ledger

MAVE: (메이브) and Eternity (이터니티) are the groups people usually picture when they hear "AI idol", and the label fits them more literally than it fits PLAVE.

MAVE:'s four members, Siu, Zena, Tyra and Marty, were built with AI and real-time 3D tools. Their voices are produced without a visible singer behind each character. They debuted on 25 January 2023 with "PANDORA" and drew strong early views. Their last release we can find is the EP What's My Name (30 November 2023), followed by a first YouTube livestream in August 2024. Nothing official confirms a disbandment, but as of October 2026 the group has had no new music for almost three years.

Eternity goes further with the "no real person" pitch. Pulse9 built it on its own generative AI platform, DeepReal AI, and the 11 members were chosen by public vote from 101 AI candidates (the "AI 심쿵챌린지 101"). Unlike MAVE:, Eternity has kept going. It released its first full album, HELLO WORLD, on 11 November 2025, followed in January 2026 by a music video for the new song "글리치" (Glitch) and a plan for a vertical-MV series through the year; by then it had about 35 million cumulative YouTube views and more than 200,000 subscribers. We found no new album or EP in 2026. That is a real audience, but it is a YouTube audience. There is no million-seller, Billboard entry or stadium show to compare with PLAVE.

naevis and aespa: A Company Character, Not a Group

aespa is grouped with virtual idols constantly, but it is a different case. aespa is a real, human K-pop group (Karina, Winter, Ningning, Giselle). SM Entertainment gave it fictional "ae-" avatar counterparts in its story world, guided by a character called naevis (나이비스). On 10 September 2024 SM turned naevis into a solo virtual artist with the single "Done", its first virtual artist; her look and voice are built with AI technology. Korean coverage in June 2025 noted that she had faded within a year: the debut video drew about 2.3 million views, well short of what SM's launch plans had promised.

SM tried again. Her second single, "Sensitive", came out on 7 August 2025 with a more animated look, and she performed it on MBC's Show! Music Core. MTN reported about 350,000 music-video views after 12 days, and said the AI production is expensive, down to the cost of changing her outfits. We found no release since. She is the clearest example of a virtual act that a big company built, rather than one built around a performer.

The 2026 Wave: New Debuts, and One You Can't Verify

PLAVE's sales pulled new companies into the field. Critic Lim Hee-yoon (임희윤) counted 10 virtual groups among the 45 idol groups that debuted in January–September 2026, or 12 of 48 acts once solo singers are included. Besides MY:RAKL and OWIS above, the 2026 debuts with Korean coverage include:

• L.I.N.C (링크), from LV Nexus (엘브이넥서스), billed as the first virtual girl group of 2026, with a debut announced for 23 January 2026.
• SLIKT (슬릭트), which debuted in July 2026 as the first act of an "AI artist project" called ryft.
• KiePi, launched in Japan by SM Entertainment Japan and SM's virtual studio Studio Realive.

We have not listed sales or chart figures for these, because we could not confirm any. The model is fragile: the avatar is cheap to make, but the live performance and fan community behind it are not. In March 2026 The Fact described most of the early-2020s virtual groups as having "disappeared or gone quiet", and set PLAVE's million-sellers against that.

A note on "Veridian". Google users keep asking us whether Veridian is an AI K-pop group. We found social media accounts using that name and a fan-wiki description of a 12-member "virtual performance group". We found no Korean news coverage, no agency we could confirm, and no chart entry. Until that changes, treat it as an online project rather than a debuted K-pop group, and be careful with anything sold under the name.

Why Korean Companies Are Betting on This

The reasoning is not just about chasing a trend. A Korea University media professor quoted by Rest of World points to production costs "far lower than those for human idols": no dorms, no styling teams for every schedule, no years-long trainee pipeline. That lets a startup like VLAST compete without a major label's infrastructure.

There is also a quieter benefit for the performers: their faces are never public, so they keep a private life that human idols give up. PLAVE's members still perform, write and stream like any idol group.

The Real Criticism, and the Part Most Coverage Skips

Not everyone in the industry is on board. In February 2025, on MBC radio's 정오의 희망곡, host Kim Shin-young (김신영) said she found it hard to treat a virtual group naturally on air. After fan backlash she apologised on air the next day. Critics raise a broader worry too: a performer who can be digitally tuned beyond human limits is not a fair contest for human idols.

What casual coverage skips is that going virtual does not protect the real people involved. Rest of World reported on Re:Revolution, a motion-capture group similar to PLAVE, whose members described "false rumors and vicious backlash over comments made during livestreams". One said being a virtual idol "made me feel mentally fragile".

Korean courts have since caught up:

• The ruling. On 14 May 2025 the Goyang branch of Uijeongbu District Court (의정부지법 고양지원) ruled on abusive posts aimed at PLAVE's avatars. It held that insulting the avatar insults the real people behind it, because the public links the two.
• What it was. A civil damages case, not a criminal defamation case.
• The award. ₩100,000 to each of the five members, who had asked for ₩6.5 million each. Small money, but the principle now has a first-instance court behind it.

The authenticity question also lands differently by group. "Is it a real performance if an AI voice is singing?" is a fair question for Eternity or MAVE:. It does not really apply to PLAVE or Isegye Idol, where a real person is singing live behind the mask. Early viewers of the fully AI groups also hit the uncanny valley: CNN reported that many viewers of Eternity's 2021 debut found the members' facial expressions unnatural and "divorced from their bodies". PLAVE sidesteps that with openly animated, stylised faces that never pretend to be photographic.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Is PLAVE made up of real people? Yes. PLAVE's five members, Yejun, Noah, Bamby, Eunho and Hamin, are real performers who sing and dance live using real-time motion capture. The avatar is a mask over a live performance, not a replacement for one. A Korean court in May 2025 treated insults aimed at the avatars as insults to the real members.

Q: What are the virtual K-pop groups, as a list? Real performers behind avatars: PLAVE (VLAST, 2023) and Isegye Idol (VTuber group, 2021). Agency groups that have not said how members are performed: SKINZ (Bridge Entertainment, 2025), MY:RAKL (Accord Entertainment, 2026) and OWIS (all my anecdotes, 2026). AI-built or fully virtual: Eternity (Pulse9, 2021), MAVE: (Metaverse Entertainment, 2023, dormant) and SM's solo artist naevis (2024). Other 2026 debuts include L.I.N.C and SLIKT. Ten of the 45 idol groups that debuted in January–September 2026 were virtual.

Q: Which groups are like PLAVE? The closest is Isegye Idol: real people performing live behind avatars, with real album sales and big-venue shows. SKINZ, MY:RAKL and OWIS follow PLAVE's agency-group format, though their agencies have not said whether real performers drive the avatars live, and none has matched its sales. MAVE: and Eternity look similar on screen but are AI-built characters, not performers in costume.

Q: Has any virtual K-pop group disbanded? As of 26 October 2026 we found no official disbandment announcement among the groups in this list. MAVE: has released no music since November 2023 and naevis none since August 2025, so treat them as dormant rather than active.

Q: Are MAVE: and Eternity actually AI? More literally than PLAVE, yes. MAVE:'s members were built with AI and real-time 3D tools. Eternity was built on Pulse9's DeepReal AI platform, and its 11 members were picked by public vote from 101 AI candidates.

Q: How much are PLAVE concert tickets in Korea? Korean dates are sold through NOL Ticket, and seat prices appear on the booking page once sales open; we have not listed them because we could not recheck the September 2026 prices. Korean dates go on sale to fan-club members first and sell out quickly. Watch PLAVE's Weverse notices for the next Korean dates.

Q: Is Veridian an AI K-pop group? We could not confirm it. Veridian exists on social media, but we found no Korean news coverage, no verifiable agency and no chart entry as of October 2026.

Q: Is aespa a virtual idol group? No. aespa is a human group. Its "ae-" avatars and the character naevis come from SM Entertainment's story world. naevis debuted separately as a solo virtual artist in September 2024.

Sources and Further Reading

• Hankyung (한국경제), 21 Feb 2025: Caligo Pt.1 first-week sales and Billboard Global 200
• Digital Daily (디지털데일리), 17 Nov 2025: PLBBUU first-week sales
• Sports Kyunghyang (스포츠경향), 29 Apr 2026: Caligo Pt.2 on the Billboard 200
• Star News, 17 Sep 2026: HYPERDRIVE release date
• IS Plus (일간스포츠), 20 Oct 2026: HYPERDRIVE first-week sales and remaining tour dates
• Top Star News (톱스타뉴스), 21 Oct 2026: HYPERDRIVE 1,322,973 copies, release dates
• MTN, Sep 2026: VLAST revenue and MY:RAKL investment
• Sports Kyunghyang, 24 Nov 2025: PLAVE at Gocheok Sky Dome
• NOL Ticket: 2026 PLAVE World Tour KEEP IT MANIC in Incheon
• My Daily via Daum, 22 Apr 2024: HYBE and YG Plus invest in VLAST
• PLAVE Weverse notice: KEEP IT MANIC tour dates
• Seoul Metropolitan Government, Aug 2025: PLAVE named Startup Seoul ambassador
• Wikitree (위키트리): Isegye Idol, first virtual artist on Melon's Millions list
• Sports Kyunghyang, Sep 2024: Melon, PLAVE and Isegye Idol's Millions entries
• Newsis (뉴시스), 11 Jan 2024: Woowakgood and Isegye Idol to move to AfreecaTV
• Electronic Times via Daum, 18 May 2025: Isegye Festival at Gocheok Sky Dome
• CJ CGV press release, 2025: live cinema relay of the Isegye Idol Part
• Herald, 11 Nov 2025: Eternity's first full album
• Herald, 22 Jan 2026: Eternity's "글리치", vertical-MV series and DeepReal AI
• Daum, 21 Jun 2025: naevis a year after debut
• MTN, Aug 2025: naevis's second single "Sensitive" and its costs
• Sports Kyunghyang, 21 May 2026: SKINZ fan club, mini album and radio charts
• Sports Kyunghyang, 26 Dec 2025: SKINZ previews "WHY U MAD" at 2025 SBS Gayo Daejeon
• TopCeleb via Nate, 2 Oct 2026: MY:RAKL's monthly singles and new member
• Tenasia (텐아시아), 23 Mar 2026: OWIS debut
• Sports Kyunghyang, 25 Mar 2026: OWIS pop-up at The Hyundai Seoul
• iMBC, 5 Apr 2026: OWIS on Show! Music Core
• Sports Kyunghyang, 9 Dec 2025: L.I.N.C debut announcement
• The Fact (더팩트), 2 Mar 2026: virtual idols after PLAVE
• Sidae (시대), 26 Sep 2026: virtual groups in the 2026 debut class
• Law Times (법률신문), 14 Jun 2025: the PLAVE avatar insult ruling
• YTN, 17 Feb 2025: Kim Shin-young's radio remark and apology
• Rest of World: Korea's virtual idol boom
• CNN: Inside Korea's AI K-pop bands
• EpicKor K-pop photocard collecting guide