philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Creators Get Bigger Star Treatment Across Entertainment — and Brands Are Noticing

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At a time when traditional media companies are consolidating and scrambling to find growth, user-generated content and the creator space is seeing a surge of interest and investment. The creator economy — defined as everything from ads pulled in from YouTube content to merchandising and marketing partnerships — is expected to grow to $480 billion by 2027, according to Goldman Sachs. ...

“They’re modern media companies,” Jared Carneson, global head of social at Adobe, said. “They have circulation that rivals traditional media companies. They have more watch time and eyeballs on them than Hollywood blockbusters.”

To further that point, Khare noted that her content sits alongside traditional shows on the home pages of connected televisions, signaling that this content goes beyond something quick you watch on your phone. ...

“Creators are building businesses off of the products that are genuine to them. It’s not just selling themselves or the content they create but being able to find natural extensions of themselves as well,” Catanese explained. “That’s just a natural evolution in a capitalist economy.” ...

Nowhere is that acceptance more apparent than in the living room. In August, YouTube broke yet another Nielsen viewership record, beating The Walt Disney Company as the media distributor responsible for the most overall TV watch time. YouTube accounted for 13.4% of all TV usage during the month compared to Disney’s 9.4%. It’s now not uncommon to see the YouTube app living next to tiles for major streamers like Netflix, Hulu and Apple TV+. ...

The influencer economy has always required creators to wear multiple hats — talent, writer, editor and producer, just to name a few of the most common roles. But with the rise of AI tools, time-consuming tasks like sound clarification or adding in captions can be automated.

“It’s hard to master a single tool, never mind master a suite of tools, to be able to do all of that stuff effectively. It’s exciting to see AI coming in and helping close that gap,” Carneson said.  ...

“There is no storytelling that isn’t human centered,” Carneson added. “AI is a great optimizer. It’s a great augmenter of things. But it is a tool.” ...

As for Khare, she likened AI’s potential impact on entertainment to the evolution of “Survivor.” The CBS reality show first premiered in 2000. Over the years, the camerawork and storytelling has evolved and become more sophisticated, but the main conceit of the show has never changed. ...

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