Saving creators’ time is the beginning – not the end – of the AI revolution

Ask content creators about their pain points and they will tell you that time is their greatest challenge. Despite their passion for producing the best possible content, creators often find themselves bogged down by tasks that hinder their creativity. In the fast paced creator economy, these range from laborious processes during the pre- and post-production phase to managing audience engagement once the content is published.

Social platforms can be a big part of the problem.

Social platforms play a pivotal role in the creator economy, enabling creators to have a more fluid real-time relationship with fans. However, social platforms can also take time away from the core task of creating. So how do creator’s keep all the plates spinning?

For creator tools companies and social platforms, it has been a case of ‘artificial intelligence is the answer, what is question?’

From streamlining video editing tasks to automating fan interaction with chat bots, AI tools are recalibrating the creative process to make it faster and easier for creators. However, for some AI tools providers this is where the revolution begins and ends.

And this poses a question: if all AI tools just focus on streamlining processes and producing high quality content then how do they differentiate to compete with each other?

MIDiA believes AI tools can gain a competitive advantage if they can not only generate the best content but also the best user experience for creators, resulting in the most engagement (and stickiness).

In other words, AI tools must focus not just on what they produce, but just as importantly how they produce – after all, creators are also consumers.

In the recently published 'The future of creator software' report, we unpack how AI tools can create a unique selling point by providing highly engaging and entertaining experiences that lean into a creator’s desire to improve, reach audiences, and build fandom.

We explore how progression systems seen in the language education apps like Duo Lingo could be used to tap into the top creator need of learning and improve. The report also looks into why AI tools providers should target advanced creators despite being effective at engaging beginners by making it easy for them to produce content beyond their skill.

This is the creator tools industry’s chance to lean into the growing trend of creation as a form of entertainment. However, doing so will be a careful balancing act of knowing when to race creators to the end process and when to provide features that keep them creating for longer.