If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em: that’s the mantra influencer marketing company Izea has adopted when it comes to AI.
From artificial intelligence becoming all the buzz in late 2022, Izea has been working on developing a framework around AI and marketing, which it calls “generative sponsorship.”
“The big idea here is that we want to be able to take trained models that brands create, combine them with trained models that creators produce and allow them to collaborate,” Ted Murphy, founder and CEO of Izea, told Business Insider.
Izea isn’t the only company in the creator industry that has openly discussed its commitment to AI. In November, influencer marketing company Billion Dollar Boy launched an innovation-focused division that would explore potential applications of AI in marketing. A recent survey from the influencer platform SocialPubli found that more than 80% of marketers view AI as an opportunity for growth and success.
As a first step in bringing its own AI framework to fruition, Izea recently launched AI “Mixers” as part of its AI offering (which it calls “FormAI”).
The concept behind “Mixers” is to offer creators and brands the ability to train their own AI models. Influencers will create digital representations of themselves, while marketers will be able to train AI models of their products.
Then, both parties can work together on the platform to combine their models in different ways, generating different possible content outcomes including the creator’s image and the brand’s product.
Izea
Izea sees two possibilities for using AI in influencer campaigns: a “direct” application, where content generated with artificial intelligence is ready to be published as part of a campaign, without changes to the brand or creator; and a “guided” application process.
Murphy said adopting AI as a tool to support influencer campaigns could help address the growing concern around the rise of influencer campaigns. collaboration costs between brands and creators – a problem that could soon reach a crisis point.
“On the direct application side, we see the opportunity to reduce production costs for both brands and influencers,” he said. “On the guided apps side, we think there are some apps to ensure that creative goals are met and you can move through the process more quickly.”
Using AI could come in handy, for example, when a brand needs hyper-targeted content for seasonally focused campaigns; geographic locations; or micro-events, like National Pizza Day or National Chocolate Day. With its malleability, AI could allow brands and creators to endlessly iterate on campaign ideas while mitigating wasted time and resources.
Izea is betting big on the fact that the world of influencer marketing seems receptive to AI tools: creators have experimented with the technology extensively, with more than 94% reporting they use it to some extent in a May survey. At the same time, another investigation found that more than half of creators had been asked by brands to use AI.
Technology also continues to evolve rapidly, and its possible applications change and expand. Still, there’s some time before content generated with the tool can be published directly, Murphy said. So far, the company’s customers have experimented with blenders for brainstorming and ideation. Ultimately, Izea plans to develop more advanced features, including video. But for now, Mixers are limited to images.
“I think it’s early. I don’t think we’re at the point of full publication. I’m not going to say, ‘Hey, they’re photorealistic and it looks like real life,'” Murphy said. “But the rate at which the situation is improving gives me great confidence that within a year or so we will get there.”
