Tantra Analyst

Generative AI (Gen AI) has already started to affect everyday life. Like any technology transition, there has been fear and criticism about how it will take away jobs and replace workers. This fear is even more pronounced in the content creation industry as Gen AI adoption has taken off with models like Adobe Firefly, Midjourney and others. Although there is some truth to this fear, in my view, it is largely overblown.

AI is still in its infancy, so I decided to speak directly to many content creators—both freelancers and corporations—to understand the impact. I learned that Gen AI is broadly helping creators significantly improve their productivity and, in some cases, even opening new revenue opportunities. Ultimately, I believe it will not be a “human vs. AI” consideration but a “human with AI vs. human without AI” race.

Gen AI is changing the content creator landscape.

As I pointed out in my earlier Forbes article, easy access to powerful tools is one of the key reasons for the meteoric rise of the creator ecosystem. The creative industry is among the first to not only commercialize but also generate new revenue with Gen AI. The relatively young workforce, eager to experiment with new things, has led to early and quick adoption.

Gen AI can significantly reduce the entry barrier and makes it more accessible. Even novices with limited experience or skill sets can generate images, videos, text, audio and other content for advertisements, marketing and product literature with simple text prompts. The ease of creation is making the industry march toward more and higher-quality content, faster turnaround and efficient delivery.

According to Market.Us, the Gen AI content creation market, estimated at around $11 billion in 2023, is projected to skyrocket to $175 billion by 2033, with an impressive 31% compound annual growth rate. This accelerated growth illustrates Gen AI’s massive impact in reshaping the creative landscape. Industry leaders like Adobe showcase how Gen AI is set to revolutionize the entire content creation supply chain.

Content creators are benefiting from Gen AI.

Today, content creation is an iterative, multistep process. It is labor-intensive, and much of it is done manually. For example, for the ideation of image creation, creators have to imagine and visualize their creativity, draw multiple rough sketches, iterate and close in on the final image. This is done on physical or digital canvas and may use some software tools, but it is still labor- and time-intensive. However, with Gen AI, you only have to imagine and describe what you need with a few prompts. AI models do the trick and almost instantly create multiple options for the image. This fast creation allows the creators to try many ideas, much more than they would have otherwise, before homing in on their target.

Similarly, once the concept is decided, Gen AI allows creators to iterate quickly, optimize many things and finalize the image. Again, this involves many more iterations than otherwise possible. So, with Gen AI, creators are limited by their imagination, not time or effort.

Many creators, especially in the corporate sector, mentioned to me that Gen AI’s significant advantage is automating routine and mundane tasks so that they can focus on creative tasks, which they excel at and enjoy. This not only improves productivity but also boosts employee morale.

Gen AI also enables the expansion of creator offerings. Creators can quickly and accurately create a multitude of variations of the same content to suit the specific needs of their customers. This is a game changer in the ad industry, where customized content is the name of the game. Additionally, it could open new opportunities. For example, creators who contribute to repositories like Adobe Stock can make more money by allowing Adobe and its customers to use their images for Gen AI training and to create derivative content. With the scrutiny of data used for training AI models increasing, more AI players will be inclined to use licensed content, further expanding the opportunity. This will create (pun intended) more income for creators for the same effort.

Will Gen AI replace content creators?

This is the crucial question. When talking to creators, I spent more time on this than any other question. The unequivocal answer I heard was “no.” One of them said that “authentic creations” will always have value. For example, original paintings are a highly valued asset. Although one can create many realistic-looking copies, that never diminishes the value of the original. In fact, as making copies becomes easier, the value often increases. There is also a groundswell of support for tagging AI-generated content, which will likely further increase the value of originals.

With AI adoption rapidly increasing, I expect it to become table stakes soon. As the rising tide elevates all boats, the baseline for almost all creators will be raised, keeping their relative competitive position intact.

It is also true that creative executives in corporations are starting to feel pressure from chief financial officers to show cost savings as a return on their investments in Gen AI tools. However, I heard from executives that there is so much demand for content that all the productivity gain will be utilized to create more content rather than making anybody redundant.

Just with any technology transition, some work will definitely be reduced. For instance, in our image generation example above, the mundane work that AI can automate is one such work. The folks responsible for such work must adapt to do it more efficiently using AI and even retrain to go up the value chain. If not, I believe they will be replaced. That’s precisely why I am saying it’s not “human vs. AI,” but “human with AI vs. human without AI.”

Prakash Sangam is the founder and principal at Tantra Analyst, a leading boutique research and advisory firm. He is a recognized expert in 5G, Wi-Fi, AI, Cloud and IoT. To read articles like this and get an up-to-date analysis of the latest mobile and tech industry news, sign-up for our monthly newsletter at TantraAnalyst.com/Newsletter, or listen to our Tantra’s Mantra podcast.