AI’s Role in the Future of Content Creation

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been steadily capturing a greater percentage of processes in several industries. What began as simple automation, such as executing repetitive tasks, has blossomed into a solution for creative processes.

Content creation poses many challenges for AI. The need to marry technical input (audience qualities, demographics, etc.) with creative ideas has challenged AI's abilities. Despite various skeptics, AI is increasingly playing a central role in content creation.

While the earliest days of AI for content creation were limited to publishing tweets and other low-effort content, AI has begun creating more sophisticated forms of content.

Gaming Content

AI's first creative impact occurred in the gaming sector. Developers used algorithms to map new worlds and generate in-game environments. While these processes required creativity, they relied on huge data inputs. AI is now being used to fuel other creative outlets within gaming.

Writing for venture capital firm a16z, analysts James Gwertzman and Jack Soslow highlighted the rise of generative AI, dubbing it a "revolution" for the gaming industry. AI is now bringing low costs, high quality, and high speed to in-game art creation. A process that used to take artists weeks is now complete in a few hours.

Gwertzman and Soslow further say, "Today text and images are the most mature applications of this technology, but there is work underway in virtually every creative domain, from animation, to sound effects, to music, to even creating virtual characters with fully fleshed out personalities."

Connected TV Content

Connected TV (CTV) plays a large home in our daily lives, with an estimated 87% of US adults owning at least one connected TV. With apps such as Roku hosting their own free channels, in addition to hosting platforms such as Netflix (which now has an ad-supported tier), it's no wonder CTV advertising is about to really take off.

Israeli startup VFR is leading the charge, both creating and monetizing content for such platforms. Unsurprisingly, VFR is exploring how AI can boost its services. Shlomi Ben Atar, VFR's Chief Marketing Officer, believes that AI is the future of content creation. "We're currently exploring new ways to create content faster, and more efficiently," he says. "The fact is, we need AI in order to keep up with the demand for CTV content."

Tools such as OpenAI can be a great fit when creating large amounts of content to match viewer needs.

AI is also changing the way consumers use CTV, through things like content recommendations and personalization features. Previously, data crunching of this kind was possible only if a company possessed significant resources. However, as AI development has overcome its initial barriers, smaller platforms are generating the same level of personalization as Netflix or Amazon.

The result is a diverse landscape of choices and more competition. Another emerging use case is the use of voice-based assistants to simplify browsing. While developers have yet to address the privacy concerns of this method, voice will undoubtedly play a significant role moving forward given its ability to create human-like interactions.

Written Content

Content is still largely driven by text and writing is a skill that has seemingly been a step too far for AI. However, this picture is quickly changing. AI-based tools are becoming increasingly smarter and used for interesting use cases. For instance, some AI tools work well as research tools. Instead of spending hours researching a topic, a content writer can use AI to summarize existing content, making it easy to figure out how to differentiate a new piece of content.

OpenAI's chatGPT tool has left a mark on the content writing world, with its realistic responses and topic summaries. AI is yet to land a dent in that world due to Google penalizing what it terms "AI-generated content." However, as chatGPT proves, AI-generated content is becoming more human daily.

How long will it be before we begin reading high-quality content that was generated in a few minutes? Tools like Jasper AI are already being used to automate content creation for low-level SEO programs, something that was impossible a few years ago. Other tools like Otter AI are steadily transforming the speech-to-text market, giving creators another outlet to publish their work.

A generational change

AI represents the pinnacle of the digital revolution our world experienced over the past two decades. While AI has not taken over every creative outlet, most experts believe this is a matter of time.

As AI algorithms receive more training, they'll undoubtedly play a bigger role in the way we consume content online.