• Influencers are getting roasted for using or promoting artificial intelligence.
• AI is deeply polarizing, and using it carries reputational risks for content creators.
• Even creators who are trying to steer clear of AI sometimes get swept up in the controversy.

Being a content creator in the age of AI means navigating a minefield of reputational risks.

Using or simply talking about AI in the wrong way can spark internet backlash, never mind doing a promotional post for an AI company.

Artificial intelligence is highly polarizing, and the backlash against the tech has been ramping up recently. Many factors have contributed to the negative vibes, from unpopular data centers to fears about job displacement and AI-induced price hikes on tech products like video game consoles.

In the particular case of video platforms, AI slop has flooded social feeds with low-quality videos and misinformation, irking some viewers.

In this environment, creators like Hank Green and Cliff Tan have recently faced criticism from their audiences for their associations with AI. There are three main ways creators have been getting raked over the coals about AI in recent weeks.

Here they are:

1. Promoting an AI company

The easiest way for a creator to draw criticism around AI is to post promotional content on behalf of an LLM company or AI firm.

Influencers who posted about attending a luxury OpenAI-hosted "Summer Camp" in early August received a wave of criticism from fans in their comments sections, who variously called it "dystopian," "gross," and "morally bankrupt."

An OpenAI spokesperson told Business Insider that the retreat was an education-focused event, and that "creators are an important part of our community and how people get information and learn about our products."

This week, interior design creator Cliff Tan apologized to fans after posting promotional content for the Chinese AI platform, Dreamina, acknowledging the post had disappointed many of his viewers.

Large AI companies have a lot of money to spend on influencer marketing, but creators who want to get that bag should be prepared for potential backlash.

"There's a PR issue with AI as it relates to taking people's jobs and environmental concerns around data centers," Eric Bogard, CEO of the talent firm UnderCurrent Management, previously told Business Insider. "Creators are hesitant to promote AI companies as a result."

2. Using AI in the wrong way

At this stage, pretty much every influencer is using AI tools in some manner.

If you use Adobe Photoshop or TikTok's CapCut, or tweak an image or video with an editing tool, there's a good chance that AI has played a part in your final output.

Audiences generally understand that.

Creators run into trouble when it becomes evident that AI was heavily involved in the making of a finished product.

YouTuber Hank Green learned that lesson when he disclosed he'd used AI as a research tool for one of his shows, and drew an immediate negative reaction from his fans.

"I have been relying too heavily on AI as a research aid," Green said. "It can be very useful for this task, giving me access to a lot of papers I didn't know existed really fast, but I think that has been to the detriment of my work because it has not given me the freedom to find all of my own ways into and around a topic."

The science and educational content creator has since laid out a new policy regarding the use of AI, saying he won't allow any portion of a script to be written, edited, or outlined by an LLM; that a video's thesis must originate with a human; and that no image or music in a video will be AI-generated.

3. Getting flagged for using AI, even if they tried to avoid it

Even if a creator goes out of their way to avoid using AI, they may still get nailed for it.

As social apps like TikTok and Instagram try to detect and label more artificial content in their feeds, some influencers are finding their content getting mislabeled as AI-generated.

Creators like Gregory Littley and Lindsey Lee Lugrin found that social posts promoting work they did offline, such as taking physical Polaroid photos or painting by hand, were flagged as AI.

"I cringe when I see that label," Littley said. "I cringe even more when I know it's not true."

Read more about how influencers are dealing with AI mislabeling

Ashton McGrady was horrified to discover that TikTok had slapped an "AI-generated" label on a post she'd made for Disability Pride Month.

The creator had spent hours making a collage of images, stickers, and advice.

"It was really jarring to me, because that's not something that I personally align with, and neither does my audience," McGrady told Business Insider. "The whole point of being a creator is to create myself." The post later had its AI note removed without explanation.

McGrady's upload was one of the billions that TikTok says it has flagged using a mix of human labeling and automated tools. McGrady said she had a similar experience with a different post on Meta-owned Instagram, too.

Platforms like TikTok and Instagram say AI labeling offers more transparency to viewers, but the inexact processes have led to misclassifications, seven creators say. Some platforms acknowledge they're not always accurate at spotting AI, using phrases like Meta's "likely created or modified with AI" to hedge. For creators, even the suggestion that they've published AI content can feel damaging to their reputations.

Gregory Littley, who frequently posts photography to his Instagram, said several of his posts — which include scans of physical Polaroids — say that the "content in this post may have been modified with AI."

"I cringe when I see that label," Littley said. "I cringe even more when I know it's not true."

These labels could have real consequences for creators in a time of intense AI backlash. It's particularly relevant in the $12 billion US influencer marketing industry, where authenticity and human connection are paramount. An AI hiccup can turn an audience against an influencer. YouTuber Hank Green, for example, recently apologized after coming under fire for using ChatGPT to help research a script.

"It's literally the Scarlet Letter," creator Lissette Calveiro said about AI labels and accusations of producing AI-assisted work. Some brands have begun adding stipulations in campaign briefs that creators can't use generative AI.

In recent weeks, AI has been thrust into the center of the creator conversation. Substack's CEO took a shot at AI-generated LinkedIn posts while debuting a new AI detection partnership. Days later, LinkedIn announced a button to flag suspected "AI slop." YouTube has been pulling down channels that host "low-quality" AI content, and Snapchat has made videos wholly generated by AI ineligible for recommendation in its short-form video feed, Spotlight.

Both openly using AI and promoting AI companies are increasingly seen as risky in creator economy circles. The concern is warranted. Influencers who attended a recent luxury retreat hosted by OpenAI faced immediate online backlash.

"There's a PR issue with AI as it relates to taking people's jobs and environmental concerns around data centers," said Eric Bogard, CEO of the talent firm UnderCurrent Management. "Creators are hesitant to promote AI companies as a result."

At the same time, there's no real path of purity as an influencer traversing content creation in 2026. Nearly every platform automatically uses or pushes AI tools, from Adobe Photoshop to TikTok's CapCut. In many ways, AI tools have helped creators balance the workload of managing their social media accounts and brand deals, as well as brainstorming.

Companies like OpenAI want creators to be more open about their use of AI.

Charles Porch, who OpenAI poached from Meta this year to lead creative partnerships, recently told Business Insider that part of his job is getting creators to "come out of the closet" about using AI.

"Whether creators choose to share how they use AI publicly is entirely up to them," an OpenAI spokesperson said.

AI's 'PR issue'

AI is infiltrating many aspects of modern life — and content creation is no exception.

A May survey of 16,000 creators conducted by Adobe, in partnership with The Harris Poll, found that 75% of creators who had used or tried creative AI described it as "integrated or essential to how they work."

Not all creators want to admit that publicly, though, lest they wear the AI "Scarlet Letter" on their chest.

YouTube creator Billy Yue, who goes by 8illy, isn't shying away from AI. He even made a promotional video for Anthropic's Claude in November. Still, the creator, who regularly features hand-drawn animation in his videos, added a disclosure at the end of his most recent YouTube upload that "no AI was used" in the production. He wanted fans to know that he'd drawn 1,800 illustrations for the project.

Broader public opinion is shifting, and creators feel it.

The influencer marketing agency Billion Dollar Boy found that the share of consumers who viewed generative AI as a "negative disruptor" increased from 18% in 2023 to 32% in 2025. Those who saw it as a "positive disruptor" declined from 34% to 31%. The firm surveyed 4,000 consumers ages 16 or older in the UK and the US.

"Part of this backlash is every platform is filled with slop," said Max Spero, CEO of AI detection startup Pangram. "It feels like the algorithms are shoving it in your face. It feels like it's harder and harder to find things made with craft by real people." Pangram recently partnered with Substack on an integration that detects whether — and how much — AI was used in writing newsletters and comments.

Concerns about "AI slop" have become a focus on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, which all have automated AI detection tools that help identify content that is either entirely AI-generated or substantially edited with AI.

Lawmakers have also gotten in the mix. The European Union and New York state recently developed laws requiring brands to inform viewers when AI-generated characters appear in ads.

AI labels aren't foolproof

As platforms have rushed to ramp up their AI labeling, creators like McGrady say they have become the victims of false positives.

Lindsey Lee Lugrin, a content creator and model, recently posted some paintings she had made by hand. However, her Instagram posts included a label that said they were "likely created or modified with AI."

In some instances, using popular editing tools like Canva or Adobe's Lightroom resulted in content on Instagram, Threads, and TikTok being flagged as potentially AI-generated.

While third-party platforms like Pangram can assist with AI identification, none are completely accurate. (Substack added options in its AI detection feature for creators to dispute a Pangram assessment, explain how and why they used AI, and even disable the tool altogether.)

Slip-ups can be a risk for both creators and brands.

McGrady said that if a post made in partnership with a brand was flagged as AI, it could "harm your relationship with the brand."

Advertisers are well aware of the public backlash an AI-heavy ad can bring.

Brands are taking proactive action to prevent this. Five creators and talent managers said there had been an increase in clauses in partnership briefs and contracts that explicitly state that creators cannot use AI in parts of the content process — particularly in scriptwriting, captions, and visual edits.

"If you're a brand, you obviously don't want to see an influencer you hire have a 100% negative comment section," said Jack Appleby, a relatively AI-positive creator and social media strategist. "If you're not an AI brand, you probably avoid AI right now, just because there's no reason to risk it."

There is no escaping the AI era

Despite the blowback, AI pervades many aspects of content creation.

Photo and video editing apps use it, whether loudly or under the hood. If you use Instagram's fancy font tools when making a Story post, it will trigger a tag that says the text has been "restyled with AI."

"It's really difficult to have a fully AI-free experience right now, no matter what line of work you're in," Calveiro said. "I think a lot more people are using it than they want to admit."

There are real benefits to some tools, too.

"I very frequently tell my audience that there are ethical and moral reasons to use AI. When I do, it's from an accessibility perspective," McGrady said. "But I am a person who proudly says that I do not use generative AI."

The backlash against creators' use of AI may ease in the coming months as AI-powered creative tools become ubiquitous. Labeling efforts could shift toward flagging only fully AI-generated posts.

More transparency about how AI is used could reduce headaches for creators and platforms alike, making room for them to explore how the tech can expand their creativity.

"I'm very honest about how I use AI," Appleby said. "I don't really run from it. If a piece of content entertains or educates or provides value to somebody, for the most part, they shouldn't really care."

• Higgsfield AI made a sci-fi action thriller called "Hell Grind" starring AI actors.
• The movie cost around $500,000 to produce.
• I went to a screening to see how it held up.

For a brief moment toward the midpoint of the AI-generated film "Hell Grind," I caught myself experiencing something unexpected: genuine emotion.

As the male lead, Roco, gazed at a photo of his recently kidnapped love interest, he flashed back to memories of them growing up together in an orphanage. The sadness and yearning felt real.

The sensation didn't last.

Mid-flashback, Roco and his AI-generated costars began laughing in an eerily synchronized fashion, their eyes peeled wide open. As I sat in New York's Metro Private Cinema this week, scooping up handfuls of popcorn, the uncanny valley of AI came roaring back.

Generative AI has crept into a variety of corners of the entertainment business this year, spooking many creatives who worry what it could mean for their jobs. While post-production teams are turning to the technology for de-aging and other effects, some actors in short dramas are already losing out on roles to AI characters. The shift is a top concern for the actors' union SAG-AFTRA, which approved new contract language this week that pushes producers to bargain over the use of synthetic performers.

"Hell Grind," which takes AI usage to the max, sprang up in May at the Marché du Film in Cannes (a side event that's not the famous Cannes Film Festival). The brainchild of startup Higgsfield AI — which runs an AI platform for creatives, brands, and marketers — it was conceived as a way to show the tech's potential as more than just a tool for making short videos. The company, which crossed a $1 billion valuation earlier this year, spent around $500,000 to produce its 95-minute film, with much of its budget going to computing costs. While AI regularly shows up in bits and pieces of Hollywood productions, "Hell Grind" is the highest-profile film made entirely with AI-generated visuals.

Higgsfield tapped a group of in-house creatives and outside filmmakers who used highly specific text prompts (typically around 3,000 words) to generate around 100 hours of content, which was edited down. The company did not use AI to write the script, except for a few short filler moments, which Higgsfield's CEO, Alex Mashrabov, told me he thought were noticeably less effective in the film.

The result is a visually impressive movie with a passable plot line, landing somewhere between a video game and an effects-heavy project like "Planet of the Apes."

"It's a new workflow, and it's also very important for us so that we show to the world what's possible," Mashrabov told viewers at the screening this week. "The production process looks different where it's actually possible to go back and iterate with AI and deliver exactly the emotion which the creative director was envisioning."

The company is releasing portions of the film on YouTube and plans to open source its workflow, production process, and prompts in the coming weeks.

At various points during "Hell Grind," I was taken out of the story when a character did something that just felt … off. The way Roco held a slice of pizza in one scene looked like it was his first time encountering the food, for example. The synthetic children in the movie generally creeped me out, and the AI-generated voice work didn't always feel consistent (one character seemed to flip between a British and American accent, for instance).

Still, it was hard to shake off the feeling that talented AI prompters may soon be coveted players in Hollywood.

While I wouldn't expect to see AI actors or writers playing a big role in the making of films like "Tár" or "One Battle After Another," it feels like this technology will be hard to resist for budget-sensitive executives angling to speed up movie production. That's especially true in genres like action and sci-fi, where visual effects budgets can be a big constraint. And the technology may open doors for independent filmmakers who have grand ideas but small budgets.

"Budgets and opportunities are not equally distributed across the world," Mashrabov said. "Hopefully, this will spark the next generation of creativity."

• Elon Musk has had a rocky relationship with advertisers since acquiring Twitter in 2022.
• Musk's X sued advertisers for allegedly violating antitrust law by boycotting the app.
• New SEC filings show that X's efforts to win back advertisers haven't led to a bonanza.

Elon Musk's attempts to win over advertisers have yet to spark a major recovery in ad revenue for X.

In 2025, ad revenue for X (formerly Twitter) reached $1.8 billion, up around 7% from 2024. That said, revenue was down 21% from 2023 and about 59% from 2021, the year before Musk took over Twitter and began alienating some brands with looser content moderation.

Here were the stats:

X's ad revenue figures were revealed in an S-1 filing by SpaceX, X's parent company.

Since buying Twitter, Musk's relationship with advertisers has been rocky.

In 2023, he told marketers who were skipping out on X ads that they could "go fuck yourself."

Musk hired an ad industry veteran, Linda Yaccarino, in 2023 to help woo marketers. Yaccarino previously ran ad sales at NBCUniversal.

The drama with the ad industry didn't stop, though.

A year later, X sued an advertising trade group, The World Federation of Advertisers, and some members, including CVS, Unilever, and Mars, alleging they violated antitrust law by collectively withholding ad spend. A judge later tossed out the suit, citing a lack of jurisdiction and X's failure to state a claim under the antitrust laws.

Yaccarino left the company in July 2025.

Last year, there was industry chatter that Musk's entry into politics may have helped X's ad prospects. As Musk took on a high-profile role in the US government, some advertisers began spending on X again. Ad industry insiders previously told Business Insider that they felt buying ads on the app had become a cost of doing business to appease Musk and his allies in President Donald Trump's White House. Musk left his role, and his relationship with the Trump administration has since become more muddled.

Advertising's centrality as a revenue source for X diminished in March 2025 after Musk decided to merge the app into his artificial intelligence company, xAI. The company's AI revenue is growing much faster than its advertising revenue, reaching around $1.35 billion in 2025, a 52% increase from the previous year.

With the decision to merge xAI into SpaceX earlier this year, advertising now accounts for just a fraction of the combined company's $18.7 billion in 2025 revenue.

That doesn't mean X has stopped trying to improve its ad products.

Last month, X announced it had revamped its ads business to integrate more AI tools. This month, X rolled out a new tool that uses AI to connect brands with creators that might be a good fit for their campaigns.

• TikTok advertising executive Khartoon Weiss is leaving the company.
• Weiss, who spent almost six years at TikTok, oversaw its North America ads business for the past year.
• Weiss is one of several advertising and marketing execs to leave TikTok this year.

TikTok's advertising team is undergoing another big shake-up.

Khartoon Weiss, the lead exec for TikTok's North American ads business, is exiting the company, four people familiar with the matter told Business Insider.

Weiss, who pitched TikTok's suite of ad products to marketers onstage at its NewFronts event last month, joined the company almost six years ago from Spotify. She oversaw TikTok's global agency and accounts teams before being promoted to lead the North America division of the global business solutions team in March 2025, following the departure of advertising head Blake Chandlee.

Digiday first reported on Weiss' exit.

Weiss' exit is the latest in a string of advertising and marketing team departures at TikTok.

Zuber Mohammed, TikTok's global head of consumer marketing, left the company in March. Sofia Hernandez, the global head of business marketing and commercial partnerships, and Rema Vasan, who headed up business marketing in North America, left the company last quarter.

Other teams at TikTok have also seen leadership changes this year, including the company's content division, which lost its global head of creators, Kim Farrell, in January.

Some of the executive exits have shifted control of North America teams to leaders from Singapore or China. When Chandlee left last year, oversight of the sales team, known as global business solutions, moved to Singapore-based executive Will Liu, for example.

TikTok's US team restructured in January while forming a new joint venture to transfer certain work, like US user data management, to a separate group that includes Oracle and investment firms MGX and Silver Lake. Its advertising and marketing teams remain under the control of parent company ByteDance.

As part of the structural change, Adam Presser, a trust and safety executive, became CEO of the US joint venture. Presser appeared alongside Weiss at TikTok's March NewFronts presentation to assure advertisers that the company's ads experience would not be disrupted amid internal changes.

• "Clipping" marketing, a practice where creators get paid to repost video clips, is taking off.
• Top-tier clipping creators can now earn thousands of dollars a month, with guaranteed pay.
• Clipping has gained popularity among podcasters, Kick streamers, and YouTubers like MrBeast.

There's a new class of creators moving from side hustlers to in-demand pros.

Dubbed "clippers," these creators are paid to post snippets of podcasts, livestreams, movies, or songs on TikTok and other social apps, creating the impression that they're trendy.

Even if you haven't heard of "clipping," you've likely seen this emerging social-media strategy in the wild.

YouTubers, podcasters, and Kick streamers are early adopters of the tactic, which is performance-based and usually only pays out if a video gets significant views.

The clipping community is filled with side hustlers who are happy to earn $200 from a viral video. However, as the category has matured and attracted larger budgets, a new professional class of high-performing clippers has emerged. These clipping all-stars can still get performance-based pay, but they're also being offered guaranteed retainers of $500 to $1,500 a month to ensure they get to work, according to one "elite clipper" application viewed by Business Insider.

"An elite clipper is someone who runs hundreds of pages, and across those hundreds of pages, multiple have millions of followers or a minimum 100,000 followers," said Evan Stanfield, cofounder of the clip-marketing agency Clipping Culture. "If we're paying a monthly retainer, we can ask them to post 20 or 30 times a month, instead of whenever they feel like it."

These "top 1% of clippers" can earn five figures a month, Stanfield said.

Clipping is gaining popularity at a moment of flux in the world of social media marketing. As algorithmic feeds become more personalized, hiring influencers to post sponsored content doesn't necessarily translate into views (unless you're a superstar). Marketers who post clipping campaigns only pay when their content performs.

YouTuber MrBeast recently launched his own clipping platform, Vyro, which he uses to promote his channel, according to the company's website.

"The clippers that we're talking about are not like influencers," said Johnny Cloherty, CEO of the marketing-agency Genni. "You're getting people that are like you and me, or maybe some college kids that are just looking for some extra dough."

Clippers can sign up for campaigns in Discord servers, side-hustle sites like Whop, or marketing platforms like Genni. While they're often paid to clip footage, at other times the task is to add a brand's logo to a viral video clip or to embed a song beneath a post.

They're typically offered between $1 and $4 per 1,000 views, marketers told Business Insider, though some agencies offer higher rates when creators reach thresholds like 100,000 or 1 million views.

To promote the launch of Beast Land, MrBeast offered creators $2 for every 1,000 views on clips they posted about the pop-up theme park, for example. A Vyro promotion for a November boxing match between Conor Benn and Chris Eubank Jr. offered the same rate. One of Clipping Culture's recent briefs asked clippers to promote footage from Sabrina Carpenter and María Becerra's Lollapalooza Argentina appearance for around $1 per 1,000 views.

"It is a little bit of a roll of the dice for the clippers, but it's a super low lift for them," Cloherty said. "These clippers have become an ecosystem and a community out there that kind of know what they're doing, and know the pros and cons of it."

• Netflix's co-CEO said he's asked President Donald Trump to avoid tariffs on foreign-made films and TV.
• Ted Sarandos said he thinks tax incentives are a better bet to boost US production.
• Global filmmaking has been a key differentiator for Netflix in the streaming wars.

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos doesn't think tariffs are the right way to boost US movie and TV production — and he thinks he's gotten through to President Donald Trump on the issue.

"He has brought up tariffs for the movie and television industry many times, and I've hopefully talked to him the way out of them," Sarandos said in a new interview with POLITICO, which, alongside Business Insider, is part of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network.

Trump has been keen on using tariffs to encourage more filming in the US. In May, he announced on Truth Social a plan to impose a 100% tariff on films produced outside the US. He hasn't implemented it so far.

Trump's plan to add tariffs on foreign movies stemmed from a desire to slow production declines in Hollywood and other areas of the US that "are being devastated" by filming incentive programs abroad, he wrote in his May announcement on Truth Social.

Los Angeles production work has been dropping off for years, and the city's media professionals are feeling the pain. Overseas filming hubs like London have been courting production work by offering big cost-saving incentives.

Sarandos said he'd prefer the US use similar tax incentives to bring filming back home.

"Healthy incentive programs attract a lot of production, and you've seen a lot of them move from California to Georgia to New Jersey," Sarandos told POLITICO. "Having the incentives versus tariffs is much better."

The tariff structure for a movie, which isn't a physical good, isn't entirely clear. A White House spokesman said in a statement shortly after Trump's announcement that "no final decisions on foreign film tariffs" had been made and that the administration was "exploring all options to deliver on President Trump's directive to safeguard our country's national and economic security while Making Hollywood Great Again."

A fee on foreign productions could become very expensive for Netflix, which has released a slate of international films and TV shows over the years, including "All Quiet on the Western Front," "Squid Game," and "Adolescence."

Netflix's global reach and its ability to turn a South Korean or German drama into a global hit have been key differentiators for the company, which is expected to spend as much as $20 billion on content this year.