Artificial intelligence, or AI, has been a hot topic in the creator space lately. Investments are flowing in, creators are putting robot content creation to the test, and opinions are divided.
But can you really outsource your perspective, knowledge, and personality to AI tools? We’ll explore how creators use AI, what it could mean for the creator economy, and whether you should hand the reins over to AI tools.
What is AI?
Artificial intelligence is a system that completes tasks by replicating human intelligence (or at least trying to). Whereas typical tech follows your instructions literally, tools that use artificial intelligence take a little ‘creative’ freedom to fulfill a purpose. The difference is a bit like a teacher asking you to add 2 + 2 versus asking you to tell the class about your Summer break.
While AI sounds futuristic, it’s been around since 1956, when John McCarthy coined the term. It’s also been 25 years since a computer beat a human chess champion for the first time.
You’ve probably interacted with AI at least once this week (if not today) by browsing recommended content on Netflix or products on Amazon. Or maybe you’ve seen TikTok’s new text-to-image AI filter that creates a digital image based on your prompt.
TikTok’s AI filter turns anyone into a digital artist—at least for a brief moment. Image via TechCrunch.
It’s been a bonkers week for the AI content space.
🤖 @heyjasperai raised $125mil at a $1.5B valuation to supercharge marketing teams.
🤖 Stability AI raised $101mil for open-source AI efforts.
🤖 Every launched Lex, a writing workflow tool.
The intent to mimic human intelligence can make AI feel eerie. But it’s just a digital tool, which creators are familiar with. Cloud-based apps like email marketing software, website builders, and online course platforms are part of the typical full-time creator tech stack.
However, like any new tool, there’s a mental leap between ‘that sounds interesting’ and ‘I know exactly how I want to use it.’ That’s why we’ve found examples of AI helping creator businesses.
12 ways creators use AI in their business
Imitation is (supposedly) the highest form of flattery, so maybe we should feel a bit proud that AI wants to use creativity in so many ways. While a lot of the discussion about AI for the creator economy revolves around writing apps, the options are much more diverse.
1 – Task management
Professional creators consistently put out 4.4 types of content on average, which means they’re juggling a lot of tasks. Task management apps like Todoist are incorporating AI to help creators manage their schedules.
For example, the Trevor AI integration for Todoist connects your to-do list and calendar to automatically schedule tasks. The integration can also create daily, weekly, or monthly plans based on smart suggestions. Todoist even has an AI task creator in the works to break your project prompt into smaller action items, which could make planning your next online course faster.
Most full-time creators don’t have full- or part-time employees, and only a bit over half get help from contractors. That means creators are usually the ones handling the content creation and business deals. The next time you need to respond to a podcast advertiser or a brand sponsor, try leaning on AI.
Google’s Smart Reply suggests a few response options. Image via Gmail.
3 – Content editing
Sometimes in your burst of inspiration, your brain speeds forward faster than your fingers, and typos ensue. It happens to all of us! Grammarly is a content editor using AI to make spelling, grammar, and style suggestions. The Grammarly AI is always learning, sometimes thanks to human intervention. Grammarly shared,
When lots of users hit “ignore” on a particular suggestion, for example, Grammarly’s computational linguists and researchers make adjustments to the algorithms behind that suggestion to make it more accurate and helpful.
4 – Video transcription
Video courses, podcasts, and webinars are popular ways to deliver content. Still, they aren’t accessible to your deaf and hard-of-hearing audience members. Providing subtitles and transcripts helps everyone enjoy your content and makes it easier for you to repurpose content.
Transcription apps like Otter.ai use AI to turn your video or audio recordings into written transcripts quickly. Artificial intelligence also powers features like automatic content outlines, summaries of keywords, and searchable text. AI-generated summaries make it easy to find the text you need to repurpose the content without buffering through the recording.
AI-powered transcripts and outlines are a faster way to repurpose video and audio into written content. Image via Otter.
5 – Image generation
TikTok isn’t the only tool with text-to-image AI capabilities. Apps like Jasper Art and Canva AI let you quickly create social media images, blog post banners, or an ebook cover in seconds. Since Microsoft launched its AI-powered graphic design app, you’ll soon have even more AI art options.
Canva AI’s interpretation of “A cozy winter cabin with snow and smoke coming from the chimney and aurora borealis by a lake.” Image via Canva.
6 – Social media
Social media is an important part of a creator’s toolkit, and full-time creators rank its impact on their business as 7.4 out of 10. 34% of professional creators also use a social media scheduling app to manage multiple social channels. Should you try AI for social media next? Maybe. Using an AI social media tool, like Cortex, that suggests the best time to post your content could certainly help you make decisions and save time.
AI could also make your social media posts go viral.
24 hours ago, I tried an experiment – I tweeted a thread with 15 productivity hacks. It’s become one of my highest performing tweets of all time, with over 1 million impressions and 23,648 engagements.
The truth is – the entire thread was written by an AI.
YouTuber and podcaster Ali Abdaal recently tried Lex, an AI word processor, to create a X/Twitter thread. He started by writing one tip himself and then gave Lex a prompt for the second tip. On and on Ali went until he had a 15-part list of productivity tips made almost entirely by AI.
After the X/Twitter thread received a million impressions, Ali shared,
The point of this experiment was to test whether an AI could generate the sort of content that works really well on Twitter, and whether anyone would be able to tell that it wasn’t really written by a human. I think the answer’s pretty clear.
It sucked at writing. I simply couldn’t get what I wanted or needed out of this VERY EXPENSIVE AI content production tool, especially if I wanted to provide any value. Good writing springs from deep thinking, research, experience, and emotion—with the goal of bringing readers a new, interesting, and nuanced angle.
– Ashley R. Cummings
So, AI may not be ready to entirely replace your writing just yet. Shelby Abrahamsen, the founder of Little Coffee Fox, uses AI to supplement her creative process:
Jasper AI has been a super helpful fella when it comes to writing emails or blog posts. He knows just what to add to help me get unstuck in my writing process.
– Shelby Abrahamsen
8 – Email subject line writing
Email subject lines are your route to standing out in the inbox, but with creators sending 530 emails every second of every day, you’re bound to run out of ideas sometimes. That’s where an AI tool like Copy.ai can help. Simply enter a description of your email or product and let the AI generate catchy subject line ideas. Then, check if the AI subject lines are worth using through A/B testing.
Some AI subject lines could work (like ‘This is what you need to do in Vienna this Summer’), while others don’t make much sense (like ‘Table for one? No thanks – I love my friends!’). Image via Copy.ai.
9 – Sales copy
Sales copy can make or break your product launch, which can be an intimidatingly tall order. Pat Flynn, the founder of Smart Passive Income, decided to try AI’s copywriting skills with a persuasive writing test. He entered a product description for his SwitchPod into Copy.ai and let it create a sales page.
While none of the sales copy was ready to use without at least a little editing, Pat noted that the tool could be an inspiration source. “Sometimes I’m just not feeling it or having a hard time writing something, and tools like this could be very helpful. At the same time, it’s nowhere near perfect yet,” he shared.
Copy.ai’s sales copy tool uses a ‘Pain-Agitate’ formula to address a problem. Image via Pat Flynn.
10 – Idea generation
The pressure to post content everywhere all the time can lead to creator burnout. Maybe AI can help with that? After 2,099 episodes of their YouTube show Good Mythical Morning, Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal turned to artificial intelligence for content inspiration.
The AI tool used previous Good Mythical Morning content titles as a starting point, then created new ideas for Rhett and Link to try. After trying each idea, the duo would rate the idea as ‘AI, All Hail!’ or ‘AI Big Fail.’ Their video proves that AI ideas don’t have to be good to act as a content starting point.
The GMM team put AI-generated video ideas to the test. Image via Good Mythical Morning.
11 – Chatbots
Leveraging multiple income streams and products is a great way to grow your business and serve your audience. As your content backlog and product offerings expand, your audience might need help finding what they need.
You could use an AI chatbot on your site to point people to the resources that match their goals. For example, if you run a home improvement blog, your AI chatbot might start by asking people how experienced they are. Based on their interests and comfort level with power tools, your chatbot could point them to your ‘simple wooden bench’ tutorial or your ‘guide to DIY bathroom remodeling.’
A simple Zapier integration could give visitors the option to sign up for your newsletter within the chat.
12 – Voice recreation
Until this point, most of the AI examples for the creator economy have been text-based—but there are powerful AI tools that create voice and video content. YouTubers Josh Carrott and Ollie Kendal of the YouTube channel Jolly partnered with Synesthesia and Descript to recreate Josh’s voice and likeness with AI.
The AI tools used video and audio recordings of Josh to create a digital recreation that could then be programmed to say anything, like an elaborate text-to-voice command. The extent of the AI was a surprise for Josh and took months to create. While this level of AI isn’t widely accessible, can you imagine training an AI tool to create an entire podcast or voiceover course from a text script alone?
Olly surprised Josh with an AI version of himself. Image via Jolly.
Should you start using AI?
Despite its current buzz and growth, AI is still a very new tool in the creator economy. So should you be an innovator and give it a try? Creators have mixed feelings.
Some creators, like affiliate marketing coach Jak Affiliate Moolah, think you’re missing out if you don’t use AI. The opportunity to save time is tempting, especially if you’re a full-time creator who doesn’t want to work 40+ hours a week this year.
That @heyjasperai tool can be used for so much more than just blog post writing.
If you do any sort of online marketing and you’re not using it, you’re missing out.
Yet many creators aren’t so fast to embrace AI. After all, isn’t your personality and perspective part of the magic of your creator business? Katelyn Bourgoin, creator of the Why We Buy newsletter, hasn’t been impressed with AI-generated content.
When I read AI generated copy…
I remember why creativity will be one of the last human skills to be successfully automated
AI in the creator economy will never replace the creator. Instead, Rob Lennon, founder of the Creator Boost newsletter, suggests viewing AI as a partner.
If you think of AI as a creative partner, you can get a lot of value from it. Kind of like having a team member to help generate ideas or unblock you when you’re stuck. But if you let it take over your process, you’ll end up watering down your content and creativity.
What will animate humans in a world where there’s no work left only a human can do?
I’m actually hopeful.
Humans love creating for the sake of creativity itself. In a world without busywork, I imagine more entrepreneurs — maybe with an AI as a cofounder. In a world where robots can invent any scenario, I imagine people sharing their gripping life stories — maybe with an AI as a coauthor.
– Anne-Laure Le Cunff
There’s still a question of how your audience would react if they found out your content was AI-generated. Some creators share their AI experiences with their audience. Still, we can’t tell how much of the content we read has robot interference. At least a little AI interference wouldn’t change how the content is consumed. Creators and their audiences have long dealt with AI-driven social media algorithms.
So if you’re curious about AI content creation, give it a shot! At the very least, you can laugh at any comically un-human output. But don’t be surprised if you find inspiration in the unlikeliest places.
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Steph Knapp is a freelance B2B + SaaS content marketer that loves educating and empowering curious humans. When she's not typing away, you'll find her volunteering at the animal shelter and obsessing over a new hobby every week. She shares marketing, freelance, and cat content on Twitter @ hellostephknapp. (Read more by Steph)
