Is AI hijacking your conversations?
The future of online conversations may just be chatbots
In today’s edition:
Instagram is testing AI chatbots for creators
Would you pay to tweet?
Taylor Swift does it again
YouTube is coming for QVC
- Katrina
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It’s the Creators delivers quick and insightful updates on creators, their businesses, and the platforms they use.
To chat, or to chatbot?
Instagram is introducing a new program called "Creator AI" to help creators manage interactions with fans.
This program uses AI to automatically respond to direct messages and potentially comments, mimicking a creator’s tone and style. Influencers can customize the data the program learns from, including past posts, messages, comments, and audio from Reels and Stories. To start, messages sent with Creator AI will disclose they are generated by AI.
Creator AI is designed to help creators with large followings respond to all the inbound messages while lowering the amount of time it takes to personally respond.
AI chatbots may help influencers juggle conversations on IG, but people can usually tell when a connection isn’t authentic. If fans see a chatbot is responding to their messages, it’s unclear if it will actually help foster genuine connection and engagement that fans crave.1
Gotta pay the troll toll
Elon Musk has stirred the pot once again by announcing that new users on X will have to pay to tweet.
In an effort to combat bots, Musk claims that implementing a fee for posting on X is necessary. Specifics regarding when this fee will take effect and how it will operate remain uncertain.
Musk suggests that the charge will last for three months before users can post for free.
This toll was trialed before in New Zealand and the Philippines last October, where new users had to pay $1 to post on the platform.
Musk's decision may come from financial concerns regarding X, but others also see it as yet another bold and polarizing shift in the platform's direction.
Oops, she did it again
Universal Music Group pulled its music catalog from TikTok earlier this year due to failed negotiations with the platform, leaving the app notably quieter.
UMG represents some of the most popular artists in the world, including Taylor Swift, Drake, Ariana Grande, SZA, Billie Eilish, The Weeknd, and Coldplay.
But, it looks like Taylor Swift has struck out her own. She recently secured an independent deal with TikTok, bringing back some of her songs, including hits like "You Belong With Me," "Cruel Summer," and a handful of "Taylor's Version" tracks.
The deal reflects Taylor’s desire to control her music’s distribution (especially after her legal battles with Scooter Braun).
Swifties are celebrating the return of Taylor’s music on TikTok, but the situation highlights the disparity between big-name artists and smaller creators who don’t have the same leverage to negotiate while waiting out corporate conflicts.
Let’s go shopping…on YouTube
YouTube released a few updates to its shoppable video features.
Creators can now curate themed Shopping Collections for fans to explore handpicked items showcased on virtual shelves with buy icons. Channels like LongHairPrettyNails and Sydney Morgan are already showcasing their Collections.
For any creators looking for more marketing opportunities, they can also use the Affiliate Hub to discover shopping partners, commission rates, and promo codes for items they want to promote in their Collections.
And, if you’re a creator with a Fourthwall store, you can now integrate it right into a YouTube channel.
With these features, YouTube is nurturing over 100,000 shoppable channels, promising subscribers an enhanced shopping experience with curated products from their favorite creators.
Are you having a hard time tracking down that screenshot?
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https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/15/technology/instagram-influencers-chatbots.html