When it comes to using AI, creators must juggle audience trust, brand expectations for speed and performance, and competition from virtual influencers.

When creators rely too heavily on AI, they lose the individuality that attracts consumers and brands, said RJ Larese, president of talent management company Sixteenth.

“When the work starts to sound like a mix of AI-generated noise, it’s obvious,” he said. “You can feel when the human part is missing, and audiences feel it too.”

As brands and creators use AI to scale content, they’re sorting out the professional guardrails that protect the trust and connection that made influencer marketing attractive.

Aligning on AI boundaries

Creators mainly use AI for brainstorming and ideation (76%), followed by copywriting (58%), according to an October 2025 Later report. Brands and creators should set personal boundaries on AI’s role in their work, said Larese.

Thaddeus Coates, an artist and creator known as HippyPotter, said there's a strong divide in how creators and brands view AI.

“For people to see AI as an asset and not a replacement is such an interesting and core conversation, but I also have been talking with a lot of creators who are kind of like, ‘This is like a PSYOP from the inside,’” he said, referring to AI adoption at large.

While Coates supports AI as a productivity tool, he draws ethical lines around creative representation.

“I don’t mind working with AI if it’s speeding up the process or helping with decision-making, but is it personifying a character?” he said. “I’m a Black artist, and if I’m making Black art, I know how to make an afro and do braids.”

When brands and creators evaluate their fit, compatible stances on AI have become another box to check.

“It’s cutting down on how much time we spend on things, but creators are saying ‘We like spending that time, and those tedious things make art feel human,'” said Coates. “The same way I can see everything working for good, I can see it working for evil.”

Managing performance pressure

As influencer marketing budgets rise, so do performance expectations, which helps explain why creators are turning to AI. Many reported higher engagement rates (34.4%), faster content turnaround (27.8%), and better audience targeting (20%) when using AI in brand collaborations, according to Later.

Some companies argue that AI-backed content makes way for more seamless brand partnerships. Tech company Rembrand uses AI to add products into the background of creator videos, an alternative to skippable ads that a creator can sell for more than an ad read itself.

“We are augmenting human-generated stuff in ways that are totally non-threatening because the IP comes from the brand and comes from the content owner,” said Rembrand CEO Omar Tawakol.

Imperfection gains market value

As AI-generated content floods social feeds, audiences have grown more skeptical. 60% preferred genAI creator content to traditional content in November 2023, which dropped to 26% in July, according to a Billion Dollar Boy survey.

• Half of all brands cite lack of authenticity as their primary concern, according to Later.

Coates wonders how a little imperfection would fare in an AI-filled feed.

“I’m noticing that the pendulum is swinging in the other direction and we want to see mistakes,” said Thaddeus. “If you stutter over a few words, those are the things we used to edit out because we wanted everything to seem perfect, but now I think authenticity is swinging back into the fold.”

The value of transparency

Brands are taking varied approaches to AI in creator campaigns: Some prohibit it outright, while others encourage it with disclosure, said Larese. Regardless of the approach, the “key is that it’s clearly labeled and transparent about how it was created,” he said.

Despite creator anxiety around revealing AI use, the backlash is minimal. Just 0.8% of audiences and 1.7% of brands react negatively when creators disclose their AI use, debunking authenticity concerns, according to a Later study.

As consumers grow more skilled at identifying AI-generated content, they’re more sensitive to it, especially when creators present unverified AI material as fact.

“For creators who have built trust with their audiences, that kind of slip can damage their brand immediately, and it’s hard to get it back,” Larese said.