Over the last year, I’ve been in a lot of rooms talking about AI, from brand summits and platform events to tech conferences, private demos and creator conversations.

And I kept noticing the same thing: if you’re in the know, you’re in the know. But for most creators, AI is coming at us from a hundred different directions at once.

Every day there’s a new tool, a new model, a new workflow, a new policy, and another existential headline about whether AI is going to change your job or take it.

There wasn’t one place where creators could actually come together with the people building and shaping this technology, get past the hype, and dig into what’s happening. Not just what brands or tech companies think creators should know, but what creators actually want and need to understand.

That’s really where AI Creator Day came from.

I wanted to build something creator-led and community-led, with brands and technology companies supporting and participating in the conversation rather than defining it for us.

Because there’s a lot to figure out.

U.S. creator ad spend is expected to reach $44 billion in 2026, according to the IAB. In Adobe's Creators' Toolkit Report, a global survey of 16,000 creators, 86% said they're already using creative generative AI. 69% are also worried their content is being used to train AI without permission.

And then there’s what happens when AI can replicate you.

According to Vermillio, an AI licensing and protection platform that tracks unauthorized AI-generated content, the top 10 creators targeted by deepfakes over a recent two-week period averaged more than 3,100 deepfakes each, generating billions of views. Vermillio estimates that for an everyday creator, deepfake content featuring them elsewhere online can consume up to 15% of their audience, a figure it says has nearly tripled in the past year.

For the biggest creators, the scale is staggering. Vermillio has tracked unauthorized content involving names like MrBeast, IShowSpeed, PewDiePie and Kylie Jenner generating enormous audiences that would otherwise accrue to the creators themselves.

And a CISAC study projects that by 2028, 24% of music creators’ revenues and 21% audiovisual creators’ revenues could be at risk because of generative AI.

I use these tools and I love what they unlock.

I also want real answers about consent, compensation and labeling. I want to understand the workflows that are actually making creators better and the new business models emerging. I also want creators in the room while all of this is being figured out.

So I built AI Creator Day with my company What’s Trending in partnership with TheWrap.

On Tuesday, we’re bringing creators together with people across AI, platforms, advertising and entertainment to actually dig in.

We’re talking about the tools and workflows changing how people create.

We’re getting into provenance and how we establish what’s authentic in an AI-powered internet.

We’re talking creator IP and likeness, and what business models could actually compensate creators fairly.

And we’re asking the bigger questions about whether AI extends human creativity or replaces parts of it, and where the creator economy goes from here.

The people joining us come at this from very different places, which is the point. We’ll have leaders from Stability AI, Adobe and IAB alongside creators, filmmakers, educators and companies like Curious Refuge, CapCut, Artlist, Fairground, pocket.watch and Cantina that are already experimenting with what AI-native creativity can look like.

Nobody has all the answers yet.

But I’d rather have creators helping ask the questions and shape what comes next than hearing about it after the decisions have already been made.

AI Creator Day is happening Tuesday, September 29 at UCLA.

[Buy a ticket and grab your spot here.]

See you Tuesday!

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