Kwebbelkop and WatchMeForever Novelty appeal or AI revolutionaries?
Generative AI is quickly moving from being a support act for content creation to becoming a content creator itself. AI engines can replicate a human creator’s voice, the tone of their content, and the conceptual ideas needed to sustain a YouTube video or Twitch livestream. Audience receptivity to this content is difficult to gauge because of the novelty factor of AI content creators. Such is the scarcity of functioning generative-AI accounts that they enjoy engagement spikes from curious audiences wanting to understand and experience this bleeding edge technology. However, the true measure of generative AI’s capability is whether it can create content of such high quality that it can sustain a monetizable audience once the novelty factor has worn off.
The Twitch livestream channel WatchMeForever has provided an early test case because this generative-AI account enjoyed a significant boom in audience engagement before settling down to a consistently lower audience base. The always-on livestream featuring AI characters playing comedy skits inspired by the American TV series Seinfeld peaked at 11,585 average viewers on February 4, 2023, according to TwitchTracker. However, it has since fallen to an average viewership of 39 on September 7, 2023. The channel’s follower count has also fallen from around 197,000 to 175,0000 since March, 2023.
The challenge that AI faces in livestreaming is providing realistic and sustainable audience engagement. A livestream without audience engagement may be entertainment, but it is not nurturing a relationship with the audience that allows the content creator to drive monetisation through engagement.
Elsewhere, the popular Dutch YouTuber Jordi van den Bussche, known to his 15 million subscribers as Kwebbelkop, has faced a mixed reaction from his own community after using a generative AI based on his persona to create content. The two AI systems mimic his voice and produce YouTube gaming content through a series of prompts before presenting the content through a 3D avatar that is based on his likeness. While some comments on the video praised the technologies capability, others criticised the output and called for Bussche to produce more in-person videos. Bussche responded by replacing the cartoon AI characterisation of himself with an avatar that looks exactly like him. He then published a Twitter poll asking if audiences should embrace AI content creation. 86% of the 9,025 voters on September 27, 2023, were against while 14% were in favour. This response suggests that superstar creators who want to monetise generative AI using their brands may find it challenging to wean their audience off the authenticity they experienced when the creator was publishing human content.