Creators are becoming more confident in using generative artificial intelligence to create content for audiences.
The use of generative AI is increasing among content creators. Kontent.AI conducted a survey in March of content professionals and found that 74 per cent use AI tools weekly, with 39 per cent using them daily. Now, digital content creators on platforms like YouTube and Spotify are joining the growing trend in order to scale their content.
This is a look at the ways in which some creators use generative AI to produce video, audio, and written content – and whether this is a turn off for advertisers.
AI generated podcasts
Media investment firm FlightStory, which produces popular podcasts like Steven Bartlett’s “Diary of a CEO”is testing seven AI-generated shows including Bartlett’s ” 100 CEOs” interview series on Spotify. These shows are scripted, edited, and produced by AI. Bartlett’s AI-cloned vocal is the host. They are based on ideas and prompts that Bartlett wrote with his production team. FlightStory’s CRO Christiana Brenton said that the company is also testing AI-generated animations to be used in the visual component of the “100 CEOs” show. The plan is to release these within the next three week. The podcast is reviewed by a human at each stage of production to ensure it feels authentic to Bartlett fans.
FlightStory’s CEO Georgie Holt stated that the company is currently in a 60-day campaign to increase its AI use. Internal teams are competing to “disrupt” themselves by identifying critical challenges and implementing AI solutions. The goal is to increase the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the company’s operations by identifying areas where human attention is not needed. Holt said, “I’m essentially trying to kill me in 60 days.” “Can I remove my entire self from the organization and could it run successfully without me? That’s what I’m testing.”
AI in YouTube
YouTubers like Bennett ” Money Mind” Santora is experimenting with different tools to create AI-generated videos. Santora uses ElevenLabs for cloning his voice, HeyGen for AI video avatars, and Poppy AI for writing scripts. He then mixes the outputs from all three to create videos. He has already uploaded hundreds of video scripts from his past to Poppy AI in order to create a model that is unique to his voice and vocabulary.
Santora stated that he wasn’t overly concerned with his fans’ reactions to AI content, as he believes that they care more about quality of information than the specific tools he uses to create his videos. He plans to create his own YouTube channel to share with his fans his AI creation journey. Santora stated that he will probably still need to have a human go through the script to make sure it makes sense. “And also go through the ElevenLabs part, because sometimes the voice is weird at some spots, and I may just need him to create a few re-generations of those parts.”
AI newsletters (19459026) Lauren Devane uses AI tools to regularly write posts for her Substack Blog: Editing outputs from various models to produce blog articles about AI tech and current events. She estimated that 70% of her Substack posts are AI-generated. All of the AI outputs were directly influenced by personal ideas and context.
I’m trying to figure out how to use this to create content that resonates. DeVane explained that the more context you provide about your audience, the better able it is to connect with them. “I also know my audiences well enough that I am that taste factor – I’m the actual human who goes and looks at it, and says, ‘this hit, or this didn’t hit’.”
Doing It Right
In podcasts, videos, and Substacks creators who are leveraging AI put in effort to be transparent with their fans. Many people are still wary of AI’s intrusion into their everyday lives. A 2023 report from creator marketing data platform Ea discovered that 86 percent consumers believe that creators should disclose if they use AI in their content.
Allison Harbin, an AI analyst at professional services advisory CBIZ, said that the question of ethics in AI is multifaceted. “I think everyone who’s not writing uses ChatGPT and it’s their dirty little secret,” she said. “From an ethics standpoint, I’d say disclosing is the right thing.”
Harbin said she anticipates that fans will become better at discerning real video and audio from AI-generated content. She does not see AI-generated content in a way that threatens human-made content.
Harbin said that “human-generated content is likely to win, because it has the tells and because a large language models is essentially a parrot. It’s just parroting information that it was trained on based on what you’re telling it.” “I think that AI-generated content is limited in terms of creativity.”
Advertiser perspective
Not all advertisers are on board with AI-generated content.
Jeremy Whitt is the executive media director of full-service agency Hanson Dodge. He said that his clients view AI-generated content from creators as being lower quality. The agency has included specific clauses in its creator marketing contracts that ensure that AI-generated content is not used. If not, it could lead to awkward conversations about creators’ fees. “They want to be sure that the person they hired actually makes the content,” said he.
While many creators are excited about the possibility of scaling their content output more quickly, platforms could become overrun with low-quality content if they are not checked. Harbin, a former prompt engineer for Google’s AI-based search engine, was not concerned by this risk. She anticipated that Google would adjust its algorithm in the future to accommodate it.
She said that Google is also in the AI game and will eventually tailor their search algorithm to reflect this. Whitt, however, said that his clients are not bothered by the use AI-generated content for programmatic media purchases, which are driven more by pure metrics than the authenticity of the creator’s work. He said that his clients don’t mind if AI is used to fill a podcast slot on a network or to create 100 banners. “But when it’s a person — especially a person with a face or a voice — then yeah, it starts to matter to them more.”
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