Creators are Scaling Fast – IAB Says Brands Must Navigate a Minefield
The creator economy has been algorithm-driven for years, but generative AI is introducing something different: a fundamental shift in how content gets made, who makes it, and whether audiences can tell the difference.
That shift is creating both opportunity and a dose of anxiety. Established creators can now produce more content faster. Newcomers can enter the market with professional-quality output using little more than a ring light and a phone. But for marketers, the calculus is getting complicated – particularly as regulators and consumers grow more sensitive to synthetic content and AI-generated personas.
“I think marketers really need to think long and hard about what their consumers are wanting, especially in this overall macro environment where there are particular sensitivities around AI,” said Caroline Giegerich, vp of AI and marketing innovation at the IAB, in this video interview with Beet.TV at the IAB Creator Fronts event.
AI is changing content creation, not just discovery
The conversation around AI and creators often centers on discovery algorithms, but Giegerich argued the more significant change is happening on the production side. AI is enabling faster, cheaper, more scalable content – whether fully generated, avatar-driven, or simply polished with AI tools.
“Whether it’s fully AI-generated, whether it’s an AI avatar, whether it’s partially using AI to kind of smooth out the details, I think that has made for quicker delivery of content by both established creators who want to do more content and folks that aren’t creators that want to get into the space and scale quickly,” she said.
She pointed to the viral example of a woman who used AI-generated content – including a synthetic version of herself – to document her sorority rush. “That’s really interesting to me,” Giegerich said. “The opportunity for creators to do more with less is fantastic.”
Disclosure is becoming a legal and strategic imperative
As AI-generated content proliferates, so does regulatory scrutiny. The EU AI Act’s transparency obligations took effect in August, requiring disclosure of interactive AI systems and AI-generated media. In the U.S., New York’s 2026 law mandates conspicuous labeling of ads featuring synthetic performers. The patchwork creates compliance headaches for brands operating across jurisdictions.
The IAB has tried to help. In August, the trade body released version two of its AI Transparency and Disclosure Framework, offering guidance on when and how to disclose AI involvement in advertising. “From January when we did a version one to now, there has been a predominance of regulation that has come out, US state-led, European from the EU,” Giegerich said.
“What we tried to figure out is, what do consumers want? And I think they want enough transparency in what is AI so that they are not deceived if they did not know,” she added. “When we came out with this framework, that was the balance and level that we looked to find.”
Attribution is the next frontier
The IAB is now working on attribution – how to assign credit when a consumer’s path to purchase runs through an AI platform rather than a brand’s own website. “As folks are going to look for more products, let’s say you’re looking for some great new set of glasses, you’re going to be doing that on an LLM platform now,” Giegerich said.
That creates signal loss. “Unfortunately, that means there’s a break from you in the AI platform to the ultimate conversion of seeing what’s happening,” she said. “So we’re looking to define how AI is influencing those conversions and come up with how would we assign credit in that sort of pathway.”
The stakes are significant. IAB’s September 2026 outlook study found that optimizing content for AI-generated answers is now the top area of increased focus among buyers, cited by 76% of respondents.
The creator economy has been algorithm-driven for years, but generative AI is introducing something different: a fundamental shift in how content gets made, who makes it, and whether audiences can tell the difference.
That shift is creating both opportunity and a dose of anxiety. Established creators can now produce more content faster. Newcomers can enter the market with professional-quality output using little more than a ring light and a phone. But for marketers, the calculus is getting complicated – particularly as regulators and consumers grow more sensitive to synthetic content and AI-generated personas.
“I think marketers really need to think long and hard about what their consumers are wanting, especially in this overall macro environment where there are particular sensitivities around AI,” said Caroline Giegerich, vp of AI and marketing innovation at the IAB, in this video interview with Beet.TV at the IAB Creator Fronts event.
AI is changing content creation, not just discovery
The conversation around AI and creators often centers on discovery algorithms, but Giegerich argued the more significant change is happening on the production side. AI is enabling faster, cheaper, more scalable content – whether fully generated, avatar-driven, or simply polished with AI tools.
“Whether it’s fully AI-generated, whether it’s an AI avatar, whether it’s partially using AI to kind of smooth out the details, I think that has made for quicker delivery of content by both established creators who want to do more content and folks that aren’t creators that want to get into the space and scale quickly,” she said.
She pointed to the viral example of a woman who used AI-generated content – including a synthetic version of herself – to document her sorority rush. “That’s really interesting to me,” Giegerich said. “The opportunity for creators to do more with less is fantastic.”
Disclosure is becoming a legal and strategic imperative
As AI-generated content proliferates, so does regulatory scrutiny. The EU AI Act’s transparency obligations took effect in August, requiring disclosure of interactive AI systems and AI-generated media. In the U.S., New York’s 2026 law mandates conspicuous labeling of ads featuring synthetic performers. The patchwork creates compliance headaches for brands operating across jurisdictions.
The IAB has tried to help. In August, the trade body released version two of its AI Transparency and Disclosure Framework, offering guidance on when and how to disclose AI involvement in advertising. “From January when we did a version one to now, there has been a predominance of regulation that has come out, US state-led, European from the EU,” Giegerich said.
“What we tried to figure out is, what do consumers want? And I think they want enough transparency in what is AI so that they are not deceived if they did not know,” she added. “When we came out with this framework, that was the balance and level that we looked to find.”
Attribution is the next frontier
The IAB is now working on attribution – how to assign credit when a consumer’s path to purchase runs through an AI platform rather than a brand’s own website. “As folks are going to look for more products, let’s say you’re looking for some great new set of glasses, you’re going to be doing that on an LLM platform now,” Giegerich said.
That creates signal loss. “Unfortunately, that means there’s a break from you in the AI platform to the ultimate conversion of seeing what’s happening,” she said. “So we’re looking to define how AI is influencing those conversions and come up with how would we assign credit in that sort of pathway.”
The stakes are significant. IAB’s September 2026 outlook study found that optimizing content for AI-generated answers is now the top area of increased focus among buyers, cited by 76% of respondents.
