The first time Will Sartorius saw a short-form video ad created entirely using AI, he found it “mind-boggling.”
Sartorius is CEO of SelfMade, an agency that primarily works with direct-to-consumer brands on social advertising. The company is openly leveraging his AI and integrating its technology into creative features such as scripting, editing, and adding captions to videos.
In March, Sartorius came across a viral ad that looked like user-generated content created using the AI tool Arcads. The video got the industry excited about the potential of AI in social media advertising. In the video, a woman sitting in the passenger seat of a car talks about body odor and deodorant. It briefly looks like reality, but it uses an AI avatar modeled after actress Ariel Marie.
After seeing the ad, Sartorius reached out to Arcads as well as makers of similar tools such as HeyGen and Creatify. Since then, SelfMade's workflow has changed dramatically, making it faster and more efficient, Sartorius said.
“It will take anywhere from three weeks to two months to get UGC creators to create content,” Sartorius said. “Using Arcads or Creatify takes him 15 to 30 minutes. It allows him to test far more angles and personas than he could with the content creator alone.”
But not everyone in the creative field is as enthusiastic about AI as Sartorius. Several creators and agencies told Business Insider that they are proceeding with caution and weighing their options, concerned about the potential consequences of relying too much on AI.
Vic Banham, director and CEO of Antler Social, TikTok's first advertising agency, said AI-generated ads, especially if not made public, can ultimately drive viewers away and trick them. He said that it may make people feel like they are.
“You lose that connection a little bit,” she said. “When people become familiar with a brand, their trust in it can erode significantly.”
Creators grapple with what it means to distribute your portraits
The creators are thinking about the possible consequences of turning themselves into AI.
Ariel Marie told Fast Company that she never worried that selling her likeness to an AI company would end her acting career or limit her opportunities to work with brands.
“It's never going to be a real person,” she told Fast Company. “It will definitely be close, but it will never reflect my character or my mannerisms. You can't fake that.”
But other creators who rely on UGC ads and brand collaborations for income were less optimistic. Some worried that brands would not compensate them fairly for their likeness.
Micro-influencer Kristen Bousquette said: “I would be very disappointed in any brand that tries to find a loophole where they actually pay creators.” “I would be very worried about the future of my business if this became a big thing.”
In addition to AI companies like the one Ariel Marie has worked with, brands are experimenting with taking people's likenesses and turning them into AI. Shea Saunders, a lawyer who runs the legal advisory firm Bloomy for Creators, said some brands are asking creators to license not just their name, image and likeness, but also their eye movements, facial expressions and voice. He said he sees them starting to include provisions. rhythm.
UGC creator Patricia Ledula said she is increasingly encountering AI clauses in contracts with brands. One of these clauses, seen by BI, stated that it gave the brand the right to transform her voice and facial features into AI, and that she was required to waive that contract for future use at our discretion. Permanently store your likeness for use in advertising or commercial activities.
Redulla said she was not asked to pay additionally for having her likeness used in this way, but she felt compelled to sign the contract to avoid losing her job. Ta. As these provisions become more commonplace, she hopes brands will start compensating creators for image rights, similar to when whitelisting content or using it for paid social advertising. There is.
Patricia Redulla is a user-generated content creator. Gillian Hawkins photo
But even with more funding, some creators may be reluctant to become Avatars. The four creators told BI that they had no intention of selling their likenesses.
“As a creator, I would never do that, because the money is in your intelligence, your intellectual property, your creativity,” said Geneva Wint, a technologist and creator. “That’s where your uniqueness is, that’s where your brand is, that’s where your value is.”
AI is still far from taking over the UGC space — for now.
While the viral nature of the Arcads ad has created a lot of noise about AI and UGC, ad industry executives said humans are still the go-to for this type of social advertising.
Chris Robinson, a paid social director at Goat, an ad agency owned by WPP, and Banham of Antler Social have little or no generative AI in their work and only use it for creative work. He said he had no intention of starting.
“The reason we think influencer stuff is so effective is because it's real people telling real stories,” Robinson said. He said WPP is investing heavily in AI as an “efficiency” to help speed up repetitive processes.
Many brands are taking a cautious stance when it comes to AI. Sanders said that although there are some pro-AI clauses in contracts, anti-AI language is more common. This includes language warning against using generative AI for anything from idea generation to screenwriting and editing.
“If I were their brand-side general counsel, I would probably include that,” she said.
It will take time before brands really start adopting AI, especially for features that are openly targeted at taking over the roles of real humans.
Meanwhile, Arcads co-founder Roman Torres said he has no interest in removing humans from advertising and doesn't think the industry is heading in that direction.
“People will increasingly use AI in the content creation process, but that doesn't mean there will be no human involvement in the process,” he said. “They're going to focus on different areas.”
