In the digital age, online learning platforms utilizing advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence can provide more diverse and abundant educational resources compared to offline learning environments. However, online learners still face emotional expression and inertia trap problems. Knowledge co-creation virtual teachers (KCVTs) can solve the aforementioned difficulties, because they can increase the emotional interaction between learners and teachers and encourage learners to reduce inertia. But whether the above characteristics of KCVTs can affect learner creativity remains to be studied. Therefore, this study innovatively analyzes the impact of the technical characteristics of KCVTs, including the expertise of resource recommendation (ERR), familiarity with learners' learning processes (FLLP) and heuristic interaction (HI), on learner creativity from a social facilitation perspective. Meanwhile, the mediating role of internal drive, namely perceived personalization (PP) and intrinsic motivation (IM), as well as the moderating effects of emotional support (ES) and incentive (IN), are considered. Ultimately, the proposed model is empirically tested using a sample of 296 users from existing learning communities. We find: (1) As the Social Facilitation theory suggests, the group factors of KCVTs influence creativity through different mechanisms: the ERR and HI of KCVTs stimulate learners' creativity (R[superscript 2] = 0.46) through their PP (R[superscript 2] = 0.59) and IM (R[superscript 2] = 0.43), while the FLLP provided by KCVTs fosters learner creativity (R[superscript 2] = 0.46) through their PP (R[superscript 2] = 0.59) in online learning communities. (2) The interactive atmosphere and learning evaluation methods in online communities' impact creativity. The ES (R[superscript 2] = 0.333) provided by KCVTs and the IN (R[superscript 2] = 0.348) from online learning communities enhance learners' spontaneity in generating intrinsic motivation to overcome barriers, thereby fostering creativity. This study extends the social facilitation theory to the context of online learning, enriches the theoretical framework of individual creativity influence mechanisms and offers practical implications for the design and optimization of KCVTs in online learning platforms.