Reports: Creator tools

Browse all of our reports, featuring our analysts' expert insights and analysis of audience segmentation, emerging trends and technologies, value chains, market shares, predictions and more – backed by our proprietary survey data and bespoke models & forecasts. Become a subscriber to get new ones every month, or just pick one to get started.

The audio creator opportunity
Audio creator behaviours and monetisation potential

Cover image for The audio creator opportunity

Rutger Rosenborg

March 2025

Creators

Subscriptions

Spotify

Historically, YouTubers and TikTok influencers have received the lion’s share of mainstream attention as a creator class – but audio creators are increasingly active on the same digital platforms and...

MIDiA Research 2025–2031 music creator tools forecasts
AI comes to town

Cover image for MIDiA Research 2025–2031 music creator tools forecasts

Mark Mulligan

January 2025

subscribers

Business Strategy

This music creator tools forecasts report acts as a companion piece to MIDiA’s report “State of music creator economy: AI’s growing reach ” . This report provides analysis, market sizing, and forecasts...

Music’s Instagram moment
The social music creation revolution

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Tatiana Cirisano

March 2023

Consumer behaviour

Apple

Spotify

Social media has steadily integrated music, and music creation tools have steadily become more social. These trends are converging, accelerated by shifts in consumer behaviour and artificial intelligence...

The future of music
The rise of a counterculture industry

Mark Mulligan, Kriss Thakrar and Tatiana Cirisano

June 2022

Consumer behaviour

Spotify

Music creators

Music streaming and the attention recession have turned music into a background activity. Artists en masse are struggling to cut through the noise, realising that streaming is neither a place to build...

Consumers as creators
The artist / audience line is blurring

Hanna Kahlert

April 2022

Consumer behaviour

Apple

Netflix

The growing independent artists sector, the rise of user-generated content (UGC), and the proliferation of basic creator tools on social platforms are all interlinked parts of the same cultural trend:...

Games companies’ video opportunity
From marketing to monetisation

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Karol Severin

March 2022

Free Report

Streaming

Gaming

Games

MIDiAs head games analyst, Karol Severin, discusses a key games video opportunity for games companies and games video creators alike, alongside two panellists - CEO of Wormhole Labs and a Twitch content...

Music creator tools forecast
Moving towards a hybrid future

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Mark Mulligan

September 2021

Creators

Apple

Spotify

Once upon a time, music software and hardware were distinct market segments, but now they are increasingly fusing into a network of hybrid creator tools ecosystems. Standalone hardware still has a vibrant...

Creator hubs
Creator tools’ next growth driver

Mark Mulligan and Kriss Thakrar

September 2021

Creators

Spotify

Artists

The emerging competitive dynamic between insurgents and incumbents is the catalyst for an unprecedented period of innovation in the music creator tools space. However, because this dynamic is underpinned...

Addressable creator markets
An opportunity with many layers

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Mark Mulligan

July 2021

Apple

Artists

The music creator tools space is undergoing a change that is simultaneously renaissance and transformation. The creator culture boom has driven an unprecedented degree of investment and investor interest....

In-game spending
Cross-entertainment product strategy

Karol Severin

April 2021

YouTube

multitasking

Twitch

Games revenue growth is about to slow, with in-game spending the sector set to retain most momentum. Simultaneously, other entertainment sectors will actively seek to monetise digital fandom. Future games...

Creator culture
The song becomes the feed

Mark Mulligan and Kriss Thakrar

April 2021

Creators

Spotify

The creator tools marketplace is creating a revolution in the culture and business of music. The third decade of the millennium represents the opening of a new chapter for the music business, with the...

Social media reboot
The rise of social 2.0 and the emancipation of the digital native

Hanna Kahlert

April 2021

Innovation

YouTube

Social media is entering a new phase of innovation. Facebook’s trio of applications, alongside Snapchat, Twitter and other incumbents, still have market dominance. However, the rapid growth of TikTok,...

Digital consumption habits
How tomorrow’s audiences will reshape entertainment

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Hanna Kahlert

March 2021

Streaming

Discovery

Digital-first access has shaped mainstream consumption, but for digital natives, it has also shaped their core behaviours. Music consumption is now fragmented across artists, becoming a personalised, anytime...

Creator Tools
The Music Industry’s New Top of Funnel

Mark Mulligan

November 2020

Creators

Apple

Music production has traditionally been, at best, an adjacent industry to the recording business, and at worst simply a cost centre. That is now all changing. COVID-19’s disruption catalysed the already-rapid...