New AI tool lets influencers ‘scale themselves like software’ - Semafor

The tech-focused creator Emily Higgins is speaking directly into the camera about the importance of a good hook for a social media video — she does what looks like three takes, each with a slightly different script.

But Higgins only filmed one video. The other two were AI-edited, using a new tool from New York-based tech-media startup Avail that allows brands to create dozens of variants of video ads recorded by human influencers.

The creatorAPI platform, which launched Tuesday, points to a social-media future in which content created or augmented with AI is increasingly common. It’s also a response to the rise of so-called “synthetic influencers,” completely fake avatars that can hawk goods on the internet.

Instead, the tool will allow creators to “scale themselves like software,” said Avail CEO Chris Giliberti. It’s designed so the human creator authorizes all of their different videos: Brands can fix recording mistakes, test out different intros, or create variations that target different geographies or audiences.

Using a technique known as “dark posting,” all the different ads won’t show up on the creator’s profile, but will proliferate into users’ feeds. Avail put together a cocktail of third-party AI models to create the tool.

Giliberti acknowledged the tool could be controversial, given how difficult it is for an untrained eye to tell the differences between AI-edited videos and the growing public pushback to anything tinged with AI, especially in the creative space.

“There’s this purity that people expect from creatives, like they’re always the last people that are allowed to adopt productivity tools,” he said. “I just think it’s really unfortunate that software engineers are able to crank out 10 times more code with [AI] tools and that’s palatable... but the second a creator adopts a tool like this, they’re shamed for it.”