As we look ahead to 2026, we spoke to more than a dozen industry experts in different parts of the creator economy, including founders, investors, marketers, creators and senior leaders from TikTok, YouTube, Spotify, Snap, LinkedIn and Pinterest.
We asked them these three questions:
What is your hot take on the current state of the creator economy?
What should the creator economy leave behind in 2025?
On a spectrum from threat to opportunity for the creator economy, where would you put AI in 2026 and why? Please rank from 1 to 10, where threat is 1 and opportunity is 10.
Several key themes emerged from their answers. Here are five that stood out to us.
The creator economy has grown up, but it’s still underestimated.
The industry is now mainstream. Some of the experts we spoke to think that’s taking away some of its buzz. Others believe things are just getting started. But many agree on one thing: the creator economy is still often misunderstood and undervalued.
• “The creator economy has never been hotter and potentially more lucrative…The downside is that the business has never been more fractured.”—Brian Flanagan, President, Mythical Entertainment
• “It's kind of like almost old media time for the creator economy…Lots of great stuff happening, but we're more of a mature industry now than we were.”—Jim Louderback, Editor and CEO of “Inside the Creator Economy”
• “Niche creators have become a part of the mainstream. In fact, I wouldn’t even call them that niche anymore.”—Rema Vasan, Head of North America Business Marketing, TikTok
• “The most recent IAB report puts the creator economy at a $37 billion industry in 2025. I think that's undervalued.”—Kim Larson, Global Managing Director & Head of YouTube Creators, YouTube
• “We are still unbelievably early in terms of the arc of the creator economy…Ultimately, all demand generation is gonna have to primarily go through content and people that have a voice and an audience and credibility and we are some minute fraction of the way there.”—Sam Corrao Clanon, Director of Product, Create, LinkedIn
Everything is starting to look the same.
There are more creators, platforms and content than ever before. But instead of that leading to more variety, content is looking more and more alike. The pressure to be predictable, consistent and brand safe has pushed many creators toward the middle, while AI recommendation algorithms and content creation tools have made it easier—and more tempting—to copy what’s already working and chase similar trends. That’s gotta go, say our experts.
• “With so many creators trying to replicate the success they see from other creators, we are witnessing an influx of sameness. The next era of star creators will be people who have untold stories for diverse and multicultural audiences.”—Kudzi Chikumbu, Vice President of Creator Partnerships, Tubi
• “Creators need to stop chasing the algorithm—or at least chasing it too much. Creators need to focus on creating great content and distributing that on those platforms that spotlight great content.”—Jordan Newman, Head of Content Partnerships, Spotify
• “We gotta get rid of this ‘In your 20s trend.’ It’s cringey, it’s performative. It turns creators into accidental life coaches. Just let people live. We’re done with the fake wisdom.”—Jim Shepherd, Senior Director of Global Content Partnerships, Snap
• “The most innovative creator strategies aren’t coming from creators. They’re coming from B2B SaaS founders, DTC operators and teenagers on Whop. These people have marketing strategies that would make your head spin...”—Sterling Proffer, Co-Founder, Creator Aligned Products
• “The era of polished and perfect is absolutely over. People are really craving what's real.”—Amber Venz Box, Co-Founder & President, LTK
Everyone knows measurement is a mess. Nobody can agree on how to fix it.
Vanity metrics are out. Proving real business outcomes is in. But industry experts still disagree on what metrics matter the most. The lack of standard ways to measure success can lead to unfair expectations from brands on creators, who some interviewees say also need to up their analytics game and stop chasing outdated entertainment milestones.
• “The era of chasing follower, like and comment counts as real signs of success is basically done. The metric that actually matters now is time spent. Depth is beating scale.”—Shepherd, Snap
• “EMV [Earned Media Value] is on its farewell tour. Everyone knows it doesn’t connect to business outcomes, but it’s safe, measurable, and no one wants to be first to say it’s broken. That’s changing.”—Jamie Gutfreund, Founder of Creator Vision
• “You wouldn't expect a positive ROI from every marketing campaign right out of the gate, nor should you expect that from a creator campaign. Put in the work to test and learn.”—Larson, YouTube
• “There are far too many creators who don’t know who their audience is beyond demographic data from platforms. Practically this means have no idea why their audience follows them and/or why they keep coming back.”—Megan Lightcap, Partner, Slow Ventures
• “There has always been a slight undercurrent amongst creators where they sought the validation of traditional media and the accoutrements that surround [it], like awards shows… Going into 2026, I want more creators to feel liberated from seeking that validation ‘cause it’s not necessary and all the validation they need is inherent in the KPIs that they can see every day in their dashboards”—Brent Weinstein, who oversees CAA Creators
A(nother) reckoning is coming for some creator economy businesses.
The creator economy is here to stay. But not every business model in it will survive. Our interviewees offered their views on what types of businesses will—and won’t—make it in 2026 and beyond. Spoiler alert: Being memorable and building a sustainable business will be more important than going viral and growing at all costs.
• “People often talk about ‘scale’ in terms of large numbers and endless audiences… Would you rather have 10 people who are passionate and mission aligned or 100 people who could care less? Would you rather your story or content be forgotten about 10 seconds later, or remembered 10 months later?”—Malik Ducard, Chief Content Officer, Pinterest
• “The creator marketing agency model collapses in 2026. The transactional shops that just match brands with creators and execute campaigns won’t survive. Brands don’t need more databases of creators or people to send gift boxes.”—Gutfruend, Creator Vision
• “This mentality of: ‘I’m making great money, so I’m just going to do everything myself and grind harder’ needs to go. Creators have to learn to reinvest in themselves, hire support, and actually operate like companies. The era of the solo creator doing ten jobs at once is over.”—Marina Mogilko, creator
• “Many creators are going for a more is more approach to building an audience. That has short term benefits but leads to creator burnout for many creators. Instead of trying to grow an audience at all costs, creators should focus on crafting content that they would like to stand the test of time.”—Chikumbu, Tubi
• “A lot of people will eventually get their heads around the fact that there's not as much key man risk—or key man risk maybe has its own virtues in these types of businesses. That’s just the way that the future of media may look: is businesses based around individuals and their output.”—Flanagan, Mythical
AI is more of an opportunity than a threat. But there’s a catch.
Most of our respondents ranked AI as a 7 or 8 out of 10, meaning they think AI is more of an opportunity than a threat to the creator economy. But as AI makes it much faster and easier to create content, it also raises the bar for creators to stand out and build sustainable businesses.
• “On the back of all of this AI proliferation that was supposedly gonna kill the creator industry…It's completely backfired from what people thought that it would do.”—Box, LTK
• AI “lower[s] the barriers to making and scaling great content. But AI slop is a thing, particularly when used irresponsibly, it can become a shortcut to fairly generic over-engineered content that people are just not gonna engage with.”—Vasan, TikTok
• AI “is a massive opportunity for the industry, but we have to stop pretending that’s true for everyone in it.”—Proffer, Creator Aligned Projects
• “The threat level depends on what type of creator you are. If you are competing simply for attention with entertaining videos, it’s going to be gnarly. If you have a deep community built on defensible content, AI will be a massive accelerant, especially if you are building a real business.”—Lightcap, Slow Ventures
• “I just don't really think AI generated content is coming for creators’ checks anytime soon. I'm definitely not fearful of that.”—Dakota Rae Lowe, Vice President of Social Strategy, Edelman
