Ad spend in the creator economy has more than doubled from about $13.9 billion in 2021 to $29.5 billion in 2024, with brands increasingly treating creators as a distinct advertising channel rather than just a tactic within social media.

Top marketer objectives for creator campaigns center on brand awareness (43%), reaching new audiences (41%), and improving brand reputation and trust (35%), while online sales and conversions are a priority for 32%, and ROI is cited by 40% as a key KPI.

Nearly half of ad spenders (48%) now consider creators a must-buy, ranking behind only social media and paid search in importance.

Wider implications of AI-generated content include trust, intellectual property, and regulatory challenges, with concerns about content quality, labor market effects, brand safety, misinformation, and the need for transparent disclosures and ethical guidelines.

AI accelerates workflows but risks displacing traditional roles and saturating content; consumer trust hinges on transparency and human-centric authenticity, with worries about AI slop and homogenization.

Regulatory and ethical considerations encompass content authenticity, transparency, IP rights, data privacy, deepfakes, brand safety, and potential anti-competitive practices, with governments moving toward disclosure and labeling requirements.

AI-driven tools and platforms, along with design suites and cloud providers, are reshaping the market by increasing demand for computational power and enhancing creators’ tools and monetization, while major platforms embed AI to boost engagement.

Winners include AI-tool developers, platform owners, and cloud providers, with intensified competition and concerns about anti-competitive behavior among large tech players as AI-native capabilities proliferate.

AI enables rapid content creation, hyper-personalization, and real-time performance analytics, transforming advertising through generative models, NLP, and visual AI.

Generative AI and related tools reduce reliance on human-led processes and improve ad targeting accuracy, facilitating faster creation and optimization of campaigns.

Virtual influencers and platform integrations expand messaging control and scalable content, as platforms embed AI to boost engagement and ad revenue.

Third-party measurement platforms help track performance, but attributing impact to specific creator campaigns remains challenging.