Blog: Generative AI

The AI revolution sweeping the entertainment industry will rage on in 2025. In recent weeks, TikTok owner ByteDance has provided a deeper look into how AI will impact social platforms . Through a series of quick-fire announcements, it revealed TikTok’s AI tools for advertisers as well as separate creator features for building AI-powered chat bots.

We all know how hype cycles work: a new technological advancement arrives, and industries rush to apply it to anything and everything. In these situations, it is useful to ask: What problem or need is this technology actually addressing? Usually, the answer is where the real opportunity lies (or, depending on where you sit, the real disruption).

When OpenAI revealed its Sora project last February (2024), the video industry began a transformational journey. It was clear even by the early clips that OpenAI’s AI text-to-video tool would recalibrate how videos were made.

Generative AI music company Suno has raised $125 million, one of the biggest music-tech funding rounds in history . Founders say they want to ring in “a future where anyone can make music”, but questions remain over whether Suno and its rival, Udio, have trained their models on copyrighted music without licensing deals.

When it comes to selling software and hardware, the creatoreconomy resembles other types of hobby. Take sports: there are plenty of cheapfootballs and tennis rackets out there for consumers who want to start playing.

The music business is bifurcating. On one side, a new AI, fandom, and creation centred business is coalescing. On the other, the traditional business is pulling the draw bridge over its moat by pushing up streaming royalty thresholds to ensure the soon-to-explode long tail knows it is not welcome.

In this entertainment age dominated by technology platforms, in-app engagement time has become a key measure of success. The fierce competition for available viewing time is what makes it crucial. For video, unbroken watch time is the north star – albeit a hard one to reach when social video’s personalised algorithms are duking it out with streaming TV for the viewer’s full attention.

The incoming wave of generative-AI content has the potential to dominate social video platforms and reshape the creator economy. As a support act, AI can help content creators improve their production values and reduce time spent creating.