Does AI threaten creator marketing, or does it make the work more meaningful?

Marketing consultant Ashley France is reminding creators that honesty and privacy are not mutually exclusive—while they don’t have to share every life detail with their followers, disclosing the execution behind their content in a murky sea of emerging tech is imperative. 

“You don’t have to tell us about your dating life if it’s not relevant to your cooking content,” she said, “but don’t say you’re giving us a recipe from scratch if you’re using store-bought crust.” 

While marketers and creators are approaching AI with enthusiasm, consumers are less convinced, as their visibility into the growing space is hazy. In its latest report, influencer agency Billion Dollar Boy emphasized that AI is already a key element of creator and marketer workflows. 92% of marketers have commissioned AI content from creators, and 91% of creators use generative AI at least once a week. AI generated content is pulling more marketing dollars from other channels, as 65% of marketers plan to relocate these budgets in the next 12 months, according to the report. 
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Marketers are eager to restructure budgets, but their biggest roadblock is trust. Three in five consumers are unsure of whether they’ve even engaged with AI-generated creator content, and most consumers don’t see AI as a positive disruptor in the creator economy. While emerging tech comes with undeniable risks, marketers are confident that responsible and ethical use cases in AI sponsor the meaningful work that generate both consumer attention and talent retention. 

“The AI space will continue changing on a rapid basis, and it’s about understanding the risks while not letting them prevent you from taking action,” said Greg Smith, vice president and group creative director of agency Hero Digital. 

Embracing adaptations

Smith has embraced AI as a creative partner rather than a replacement, and Julianne Fraser, founder and CEO of boutique influencer agency Dialogue, approaches emerging tech as the key to meaningful brand partnerships. 

According to Fraser, in a fast-moving creator space where budgets often expand faster than resources can accommodate, brand and creator partnerships have lost the realness that once set it apart from other marketing methods.  To avoid connecting creators with irrelevant brands for the sake of closing a deal, Fraser is focused on maintaining brand and creator partnerships that actually make sense. 

“It’s always the same 'Get Ready With Me' morning routine, the same hashtags and the same approach,” said Fraser, who is leveraging AI to “automate everything that doesn't require the human touch.” “When we’re not as bogged down on the execution side, we  have a little more time and levity to get creative.” 

Since launching Dial In, an AI-driven product that both streamlines and personalizes the creator search, Fraser has been able to take team members off tasks like contract management and invoicing. Using a combination of programs Zapier, Airtable and DocuSign, Fraser said AI also facilitates the creative freedom that breeds team fulfillment. 

“My team has been able to level up and grow into more stimulating roles,” she said. “We’ve leveraged AI to grow without jeopardizing the core of our business.” 

‍Acknowledging AI’s limitations 

Erin Reddick is rerouting bias in emerging check through her company ChatBlackGBT, an alternative to the OpenAI product with deep insights into Black and African American history. 

“You need a critical eye when consuming this technology, but because computers don’t have emotions, people assume it’s based on pure logic and it must (always) be right,” said Reddick, who is educating consumers on emerging tech while expanding its utility. “The stipulation of broadness is what makes it surface the wrong information.” 

Fraser runs monthly creative mornings at her agency, where she asks the team to spend three hours doing something screenless, which could be visiting a museum, going to a park or reading a newspaper front to back. Beyond boosting employee morale, she said many of these mornings have led to professional wins, as offline experiences generate the creative ideas that AI doesn’t have the capacity to compete with. 

“When we’re coming up with new campaign ideas for clients, we’re pulling from film and literature and offline sources,” she said. “If we don’t expand our frame of reference outside of what’s going viral on TikTok, we’re just in an echo chamber and copying our competitors. We have to get outside that frame of reference to grab people's attention.”