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Few phenomena within the creator economy have moved as fast as AI\u2019s embrace. What was once treated with anxious suspicion is now more widely viewed as a necessary strategy.<\/p>\n
Last year, according to Kameron Buckner<\/a>, founder of Social Docket<\/a>, which helps creators navigate the legal implications of their work, the conversation around AI was defined by dread. This year, she says, the tone has shifted from fear to leverage \u2014 less \u201cthis thing is going to take over\u201d and more how do we actually use it.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n I spent the last several weeks talking to Buckner and others closest to this shift: top creators, consultants, founders, and social media strategists. Unsurprisingly, those who returned from the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity this year said AI was a centerpiece of the discourse.<\/p>\n But across the board, I sensed no real fear. Everyone I spoke to is using AI. Some more than others, some with discernment, others with keen enthusiasm. What\u2019s certain is that AI has brought new questions to an industry built on areas like increasing productivity, monetizing creativity, and protecting IP. The bottom line: using it wisely is the difference between staying ahead of the curve and getting drowned out by it.<\/p>\n Table of Contents<\/strong><\/p>\n The Accelerator vs. The Author<\/a> <\/a> <\/p>\n DonY\u00e9 Taylor<\/a> has been the mastermind behind culture-shifting campaigns and marketing strategies for brands like LVRN, Amazon, Nike, and Essence. She now runs her own functional-philosophy-meets-interior-design brand, Nuclei, alongside her newsletter, Mentally I\u2019m Here. She believes AI doesn\u2019t stand a chance against the ideas floating in her own brain \u2014 like one of her latest products, fittingly called the Brain Bank.<\/p>\n \u201cAI is like a calculator,\u201d says Taylor. \u201cJust because I have a TI-89 doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019m going to get the right answer. I still need to put the right inputs into the calculator.\u201d<\/p>\n Alicia Richardson<\/a>, head of community and brand partnerships at FiveTwoNine and the founder of Black Create Connect, shares this sentiment. \u201cIt can enhance your creativity,\u201d she says. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t create<\/em> your creativity. When it comes to raw, creator-led work specifically, she doesn\u2019t think AI is ever going to take over, because audiences connect to people, not outputs.<\/p>\n Buckner tells her clients to think of AI less like a finished product and more like a running start. \u201cWhy start from a blank sheet of paper when you can start from an outline?\u201d she says. In her own daily practice, prompting AI well has made her a better manager of actual human beings, because it forces her to get precise about what she wants before she asks for it. She applies that same instinct to her own visibility as a founder, using HubSpot\u2019s AEO tool<\/a> to check whether Social Docket shows up when someone searches for creator contract tools.<\/p>\n Gigi Robinson<\/a>, a content creator and founder of the social media consulting business Hosts of Influence, works with her team to feed 15-plus minutes of raw footage into AI video tools to get a rough cut before a human editor touches it. The software finds the \u201cbook-worthy\u201d moments, but a person still decides what makes the final edit. The payoff shows up in her numbers, too: Robinson estimates AI saves her more than 10 hours a week and has driven a 20%-plus increase in her income.<\/p>\n Similarly, Lindsey Gamble<\/a>, vice president of creator strategy & innovation at IZEA, highlights a productivity trend. Creators are building their own searchable content hubs, feeding years of newsletters and old captions into an AI tool to surface through-lines they\u2019d otherwise forget they\u2019d already covered.<\/p>\n No matter how efficient these tools become, Buckner emphasizes, they\u2019re not replacing what actually makes someone worth hiring. \u201cI don\u2019t think any of these tools are going to substantially replace depth of knowledge and expertise,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n If AI hasn\u2019t caught up to human expertise, the law hasn\u2019t caught up to AI. \u201cLaw is so far behind, it\u2019s never going to be able to catch up to the speed of technology,\u201d says Buckner. \u201cWe\u2019re still citing cases from like 1963.\u201d<\/p>\n With many rules still unwritten, brands have started pushing the boundaries of what they can ask for. Buckner has started seeing a new kind of clause \u2014 brands willing to let creators use AI, on the condition that the creators hand over access to their prompts and processes. Her response is clear: \u201cImmediately, no. That\u2019s unnecessary access.\u201d<\/p>\n In her view, the prompting process, not just the finished post or video, is where a creator\u2019s actual thinking lives. Handing it over gives a brand insight into a creator\u2019s mind that has nothing to do with the deliverable they paid for. Regardless of whether the law formally recognizes it yet, she suggests creators establish their own boundaries.<\/p>\n Gamble has seen the inverse version of this play out in creator contracts: brands banning AI use outright. One clause he recently encountered required that a creator not use any AI software, tools, or technologies without the brand\u2019s prior written consent. He predicted that creators, not just brands, would eventually start writing their own AI-use clauses into agreements, protecting how their content and voice can be repurposed by brands using AI, not just the other way around.<\/p>\n Annie-Mai Hodge, founder of Girl Power Marketing<\/a> (and also a HubSpot partner), sees a different platform-specific contradiction playing out. Social platforms are pushing AI tools directly into creators\u2019 dashboards, she says, while simultaneously penalizing the content those same tools produce. \u201cWe are stuck in this incredibly frustrating paradox where platforms demand AI adoption but punish the output,\u201d says Hodge. The result, she argues, is creators who are either too nervous to experiment with the tools they\u2019re being handed, or too afraid to admit they already have.<\/p>\n Robinson has witnessed what happens when creators rely on AI without fully understanding the fine print. She points to a creator who partnered with one brand, then posted content for a direct competitor just two weeks later. That fell well within the exclusivity window most brand deals require \u2014 something Robinson knows firsthand from her own partnerships with the same agency.<\/p>\n She wonders, \u201cWas that an AI problem that she didn\u2019t actually read and comprehend, because she just sent it to AI and said, \u2018negotiate for me\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n On another note, the mere act of feeding a confidential contract into a public tool like ChatGPT, Robinson notes, can sometimes itself put a creator in breach, depending on how strict the brand\u2019s legal team is.<\/p>\n This is precisely why Buckner is so passionate about the legal support she offers to creators. AI can help a creator understand what a term like \u201cperpetuity\u201d means, she says, but it can\u2019t tell them how that term will actually play out in their specific circumstances. Connecting the definition to the real-life consequence, Buckner believes, is still a human job.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n In many ways, AI has become the great equalizer. Gamble sees that case play out constantly in his work with creators. What once required a big budget is now available to anyone with a laptop and a subscription. \u201cIt gives them the tools that bigger creators have with teams and dedicated staff and more funds,\u201d he says of emerging creators. Scripts, captions, rough cuts, carousels \u2014 the entire production pipeline that once required hired help now takes minutes.<\/p>\n The same tools that lower the barrier to entry are also flattening what comes out the other side. \u201cIf everyone\u2019s using the same thing and doing the same thing, a lot of the content feels the same,\u201d Gamble says. It\u2019s a byproduct of thousands of creators prompting the same handful of AI tools in largely the same ways.<\/p>\n
\n Legal is trying to catch up.<\/a>
\n Does AI level the playing field, or widen the gap?<\/a>
\n The consensus: Humans remain irreplaceable.<\/a> <\/p>\nThe Accelerator vs. The Author<\/h2>\n
Legal is trying to catch up.<\/h2>\n
Does AI level the playing field, or widen the gap?<\/h2>\n