Influencers are being pelted with virtual tomatoes for promoting AI companies — and it’s prompting strategy shifts and high-stress decisions in the creator economy.
At the height of summer, OpenAI brought a group of influencers to a luxury resort in upstate New York to dine on farm-to-table cuisine, learn how honey is made, and post about it online.
The “Summer Camp” experience, which OpenAI said was tied to the launch of its ChatGPT Work product, quickly drew hate in comments sections.
“Looks like a nice spot for a data center,” one user commented on an influencer’s post showcasing the pastoral setting. Others chimed in, calling it “dystopian” and “morally bankrupt.”
The marketing mishap served as a lesson for creators, managers, and brands alike. Promoting artificial intelligence has become risky for creators as public sentiment around the tech has curdled. AI companies are using a mix of high pay rates and careful messaging to keep creators signing deals in a fraught environment.
The most straightforward idea AI companies are trying to convey: AI is helpful, not evil.
“It’s really important for AI companies to share the right, tailored message to the audiences,” said Alisher Shariyazdanov, an executive at generative video startup Higgsfield AI.
Higgsfield’s hedge against anti-AI haters is to compile a list of topics that are “likely to trigger hatred rather than some positive emotions” based on sentiment analysis of creators’ comment sections, Shariyazdanov said. The company then advises creators to avoid those topics, and if backlash does ensue, it works with them to understand what triggered it and what next steps they should take.
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Many of the AI promotions that creators are making are tutorials on how to use their products to be creative or manage their complicated lives.
That can still carry risks, however. Last week, Cliff Tan, an interior design creator with millions of followers, became a target after posting sponsored content for Dreamina Seedance 2.5, ByteDance’s AI tool. In his promo, he used the tech to turn an architectural drawing into a video. Commenters were split: some called it disappointing and threatened to unfollow him, while others were confused about why it sparked so much hate.
To make the potential public shaming worth it, influencers want to see the money.
“They’re coming in hot with these long-term budgets,” Becca Bahrke, CEO of Illuminate Social, told Business Insider of AI companies. Longer-term partnerships — typically several posts shared over the course of a few months — mean more recurring cash for creators.
Top AI companies are offering some creators five to seven figures to promote their tools, according to three talent managers.
Knowing that these deals could feed creators to the anti-AI wolves in the comment section, managers may also negotiate higher rates than typical deals. One manager said they might add a 20% to 30% premium to a creator’s standard rate when working with larger AI companies, depending on the company’s funding and the scope of the deal.
The looming question: Is it worth it?
AI is unpopular among the broader public. Around 42% of Americans expect AI to have a negative impact on the US, compared with 17% who believe its effect will be positive, according to an Annenberg Public Policy Center survey conducted in February and March.
“We’re in the middle of the moment of the rejection of AI,” said Kyle Hjelmeseth, founder of G&B Digital Management. He said working with AI companies is “shortsighted.”
The reason: it could cause long-term damage to a creator’s image and, ultimately, their earning potential.
“It takes a really long time for creators to get the trust of their audience, to get these loyal communities,” said Josh Kaplan, CEO of talent management firm Smooth Media. You make one misstep and “people write you off immediately,” he added.
Creators are learning the hard way that not every deal is worth the payout.
“I’m so sorry,” Tan wrote in a comment under the video that threw him onto the AI hotseat. “I wasn’t even paid that much.”
Julian Andrew, founder of management firm Talentiish, said he advises clients to have a high bar for deciding which AI companies are worth the risk.
“Anything with an unknown name and then AI after is a no-go,” Andrew said. Still, some of his clients “want to avoid working with AI” altogether.
Given the stakes, finding influencers willing to post on an AI brand’s behalf can be challenging.
AI companies are “all vying to work with the same group of popular AI creators,” said Keith Bendes, chief strategy officer at influencer marketing platform Linqia. “Layer on top of that a desire for some level of category exclusivity with those partnerships, and you have a situation where creators have significant negotiation power.”
Toeing the AI line
Some creators who take AI deals are proactively distancing their content from “slop.”
YouTuber Billy Young has posted promotional videos for generative AI tools like Anthropic’s Claude and Adobe’s Firefly.
Still, he made clear to viewers in a recent video: He did not use generative AI to cut corners.
Screenshot/TikTok
Young added a “no AI was used” message to the video, which featured lots of hand-drawn animation and a story about Young and a friend sleeping in an igloo for two nights in the frigid Arctic Circle of Finland. All 1,800 frames of animation included in the post were hand-drawn.
“I felt like I’d do a disservice to myself if I didn’t put that,” he said of the disclaimer. “If anything, I wish I put more about just how much work went into it, because I think it matters.”
He said he wasn’t an “absolutist” about AI, and added that he personally used it “sparingly.”
Meanwhile, achieving AI purity by boycotting the tech entirely has become impossible for most content creators. The tech is pervading nearly all creative tools, from Adobe’s product suite to mobile video editors like CapCut.
Creators told Business Insider that they regularly use mainstream products like ChatGPT. Some are using more niche tools, like Riverside’s AI feature to cut awkward filler words and pauses from podcast recordings, or Manychat to automate DMs in response to comments.
“The dirty secret is that everybody is using it,” Kaplan said.
