The best way to future-proof your business is to embrace AI and build adaptable teams.
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Business in the United States is being completely overhauled as artificial intelligence upends nearly every industry.
Whether you’re exploring new ways to scale your company or reshaping your workforce, business leaders must weigh the costs — known and unknown — with potential gains, which are hardly guaranteed.
“For managers, AI agents mean less time spent overseeing basic training and more time to focus on higher-value tasks,” writes Forbes contributor Aytekin Tank, CEO of the San Francisco-based startup Jotform. “The key is smart delegation: Entrepreneurs and managers should use AI agents to handle designated training tasks, while maintaining strategic direction. Businesses that move quickly to integrate AI-driven learning will reap a major competitive advantage.”
Here’s how our expert contributors suggest you do it.
AI Is Not A Cure-Al — Use Tools Strategically
Writing and editing text may be the most popular use case for AI tools today. According to a McKinsey & Company survey from late 2024, more than 63% of executives said their companies are using generative AI to write text, relying more on chatbots.
The trouble is, employees often say that AI tools can make teams less productive, Forbes contributor Tor Constantino reports. He cites research highlighting “the shockingly wide divide between the expected productivity gains by senior executives and the lackluster results shared by the overwhelming majority of rank-and-file employees.”
In fact, University of Chicago professor Anders Humlum and University of Copenhagen professor Emilie Vestergaard published a study in 2025 that found “AI chatbots have had no significant impact on earnings or recorded hours in any occupation.” The modest productivity gains were offset by disengaged workers who felt they lost both growth potential and agency.
“The extent to which we can use AI to augment the curious, driven and collaborative tendencies of our teams, the more optimistic we can be about their ability to develop new, unimagined innovations that open new streams of revenue,” Aktar writes.
Otherwise, executives may expect more from employees without considering that new tech tools require training to use well, and troubleshooting to maintain. Plus, automated production routinely requires human intervention to protect quality. If executives merely expect teams to churn out more work — seeing AI tools and services as a way to reduce headcount — the result may be additional work and lower morale.
“Workers report spending more time reviewing AI-generated content and learning tool complexities than the time these tools supposedly save,” writes Forbes contributor Luis Romero, the founder of GenStorm AI.
If maintaining positive team dynamics isn’t part of the foundation of your company’s business strategy, then adopting AI tools is unlikely to increase productivity — and could lead to a worker exodus.
When employees start using AI tools creatively to achieve high quality outcomes, that is a sign that the company is achieving a healthy level of AI adoption that can evolve along with the emerging technology.
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How To Measure AI Adoption
As talent leaves, cyclical recruiting costs increase. Mounting tech support responsibilities without pay raises, team-building and growth opportunities can lead employees to disengage. To keep staff connected, executives must protect face-to-face time with coworkers, if only via remote video calls.
“What draws people in now isn’t just communication. It’s the sense that someone notices effort before asking for output,” writes Forbes contributor Vibhas Ratanjee, a Gallup researcher who specializes in leadership development. “Most internal tools are built to save time. Fewer steps. Smoother clicks. But frictionless doesn’t always mean thoughtful. When we remove human pauses, we risk removing the parts that build connection.”
Prolonged human-machine interaction creates mental fatigue, which can be eased with team-building and collaborative projects. When motivated teams use AI tools, that’s when the magic happens.
Forbes contributor Anne Griffin, an AI product consultant, writes that executives should measure a team’s AI adoption by focusing on speed and value created without compromising quality. Most teams could move faster, but quality suffers. That’s not the goal. Instead, Griffin recommends evaluating whether employees are demonstrating more agency in how they use AI tools.
When employees start using AI tools creatively, rather than merely prescriptively, that’s the type of AI adoption that can evolve along with the emerging technology.
Once sustainable AI adoption has become a central pillar of your company’s business strategy, that’s when you should start hiring AI experts.
Skills-based hiring and internship programs can help companies identify new, AI-savvy talent.
“Check that your job ads reach a broad range of potential candidates. Use gender-neutral job descriptions to increase the number of women applicants,” writes Forbes contributor Corinne Post. “Involve technical women in the interview process: female job candidates who interview with female role models are more likely to accept job offers.”
That advice doesn’t only apply to technical roles. Forbes contributor Dr. Aviva Legatt, the founder of EdGenerative consultancy, which focuses on AI in education, recommends that employers should look beyond computer science majors and focus on “cross-disciplinary connections.” AI learning is not restricted to the IT department or engineering team, it will be a part of every department at the company.
Recruit interns and entry-level employees from universities that have robust AI education programs, like the University of Georgia and Emory University, in addition to Ivy League schools like Princeton. “Rather than limiting AI development to computer science or IT departments, Emory has deliberately fostered cross-disciplinary connections,” writes Legatt.
Skills-based hiring can help identify needed know-how on resumes, cover letters and LinkedIn profiles, regardless of the candidates’ degrees.Candidates from all backgrounds can prove their skills on tests you can administer during the interview process.
With regards to Gen Z candidates, Forbes contributor Sarah Hernholm, a SXSW EDU Student Startup Competition coordinator, also recommends considering candidates with communications degrees if they have social media skills, and graduates with degrees in human-computer interaction or cognitive science.
“Cognitive science sits at the intersection of psychology, neuroscience, computer science, and philosophy,” Hernholm writes. “This interdisciplinary approach creates graduates who understand how both human and artificial minds process information—a crucial skill as AI systems become more sophisticated.”
Next, send employees to network in person at conferences like World Summit AI Americas, the AI World Congress, the AI and Big Data Expo, and Ai4. Attendees might consider asking speakers and experts to introduce them to professionals they recommend.
Spread word of new job opportunities far and wide. When your team members post on social media about company job openings, the listing can reach a broader audience. Be open to candidates who may not have traditional qualifications but have the skills and experience to adapt to dynamic work environments. When interviewing candidates, consider with whom those candidates might collaborate.
How To Upskill Your Team
In addition to hiring AI-savvy talent, your business should create strategies for existing teams to experiment with AI tools. Investing in upskilling employees can be more cost-effective than trying to immediately automate numerous roles.
Forbes contributor Barry Libert, CEO of the platform advisory firm AllMatters, writes: “A workforce familiar with the company’s data and systems can more effectively integrate AI solutions into existing processes, reducing the time to implementation and ensuring smoother transitions.”
Companies frequently save money when they train and inspire current staff to adopt emerging trends like AI rather than relying solely on new employees.
“Effective training develops skills during the training rather than relying on participants to revisit material independently afterward,” writes Forbes contributor Cynthia Pong. “When employees see immediate applications for their new skills, they’re far more likely to incorporate AI into their daily work how you want them to.”
AI tools are not just for technical teams. Every team can explore how AI tools might be useful for different projects.
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AI Tools You Can Start Using Today
AI tools are not just for technical teams. Forbes contributor Christian Stradler, a professor of strategic management at Warwick Business School, recommends that operations personnel try AI tools like LawGeex, Kira Systems or Luminance AI for simple, standard contracts.
Marketing teams can try tools like the video editing tool Opus Clip, the text-to-video generator Runway or the image editing tool Pixlr — whatever suits the task at hand.
The most AI-proof companies with growth potential will strategize how to go beyond AI automation and specific tools. Creating an AI-savvy company is all about how teams adapt and evolve along with the technology.
“Winning organizations aren’t just updating their tech infrastructure. They’re preparing their people with training and clear guidelines,” writes Forbes contributor Sarah Elk, a senior partner focused on AI solutions at Bain & Company. “Companies that hesitate now risk being left behind—not just by their competitors, but by their own employees.”
What’s propelled your business to this point won’t necessarily guarantee your future success. Balancing bold investments and regular improvements can help prepare you for whatever AI may bring.
He’s not an executive, a company spokesperson, or a world-class researcher. But he might be Google’s secret weapon in winning the AI race.
If you’re an AI developer, you’ve likely heard of Logan Kilpatrick. As Google’s head of developer relations, Kilpatrick, 27, runs AI Studio, the company’s AI developer software program.
He has also become Google’s delegate for speaking to the AI community and — intentionally or not — a one-man marketing machine for the company’s AI products. He’s a prolific poster on X, where he’ll sometimes hype Google’s latest Gemini releases or tease something new on the horizon.
Above all, he is one of the people tasked with translating Google’s AI breakthroughs to the global developer community. It’s a crucial job at a time when the search giant needs to not just convince developers to use its products, but capture a new generation of builders entering the fray as AI makes it easier for anyone to make software.
“If you want AI to have the level of impact on humanity that I think it could have, you need to be able to provide a platform for developers in order to go and do this stuff,” he told Business Insider in an interview. “The reality is there’s a thousand and one things that Google is never going to build, and doesn’t make sense for us to build, that developers want to build.”
Company insiders say Google has recognized Kilpatrick’s strength and given him more responsibilities and visibility. He could be seen onstage at this year’s Google I/O conference and even had a fireside chat with Google cofounder Sergey Brin.
“People really crave legitimacy, authenticity, and competency, and Logan combines all three,” Asara Near, a startup founder who has occasionally contacted Kilpatrick with development questions, told BI.
LoganGPT
In 2022, OpenAI was preparing to launch ChatGPT and fire the starting gun on one of history’s most profound technological shifts. Kilpatrick, who has a technical background and worked at Apple and NASA, saw an online job ad for OpenAI and was soon facing a tricky decision: to work at what was then Sam Altman’s little-known startup, or take a gig at IBM.
He decided that OpenAI was worth a shot — and within a few months, found himself at the center of the biggest tech launch since the debut of the iPhone in 2007.
“The OpenAI experience was a startup experience for about six months and then it became basically a hyperscaler,” he told BI. It was chaotic, but it helped Kilpatrick learn how to build an ecosystem and cut his teeth as the developers’ go-to guy. There, developers nicknamed him “LoganGPT.”
Kilpatrick joined OpenAI months before the public launch of ChatGPT.
Brett A. Sims
When he left OpenAI in 2024 for Google, developers and peers made clear it was a huge loss for the ChatGPT maker, and a big win for Google in the AI talent transfer window. AI Studio was then still a project inside Google’s Labs division, and Kilpatrick and his team were tasked with migrating it into a fully-fledged product inside Google’s Cloud unit. It was again like going from zero to one: AI Studio was pre-revenue with no customers, but with a long tail of developers ready to jump on board.
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“It has felt oddly almost like the same exact experience I’ve lived through at two different companies and two different cultures,” he told BI.
In May this year, Kilpatrick was promoted, and his team running AI Studio was moved from the Cloud unit to Google DeepMind, bringing them closer to the researchers working on the underlying models and the employees working on its Gemini chatbot.
“He’s kind of all over the place, and that’s his superpower,” said one senior employee who requested anonymity because they were not permitted to speak to the media. They said that Google has put Kilpatrick in charge of more products as leaders have recognized his ability to engage so effectively with the developer community. “Logan is 90% of Google’s marketing,” they said.
Helping Google win
On paper, Google is an AI winner. The reality is more complicated.
Its latest Gemini 2.0 Pro model ranks top of multiple leaderboards across a range of testing areas, but this hasn’t always been reflected in the number of users. Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, said in May that the company’s Gemini app has more than 400 million monthly active users. That’s well behind the 500 million weekly active users for ChatGPT, according to figures shared by Altman in April.
“DeepMind doesn’t get nearly as much credit and attention as they deserve, and that’s because comms is vastly underperforming capabilities,” communications executive Lulu Meservey posted on X in May. Responding to another person, she wrote: “Logan is like 90% of their comms.”
Some of the struggle, insiders say, is due to Google owning multiple products that aren’t always clearly distinct. Developers can build using Vertex in Google Cloud or AI Studio. Meanwhile Google has a consumer-facing app simply called Gemini. The same models aren’t necessarily always available across all three places at the same time, which can get confusing for users and developers.
There’s also the problem of being a quarter-century-old tech behemoth with more nimble startups nipping at its heels. “OpenAI can put all their messaging arrows behind one thing, while Google has messaging arrows behind 10,000 things,” former Google product manager Rajat Paharia told BI.
Logan Kilpatrick speaking at Google I/O.
Google/Ryan Trostle
Kilpatrick recognizes that Google has work to do. “I think Google on a net basis is doing so much in the world right now, and AI is around everything that we’re doing, and I think a lot of narrative doesn’t capture innovation is happening,” he said.
A big part of Kilpatrick’s job is trying to cement that narrative among the global developer base. At OpenAI, Sam Altman’s Jobsian showmanship has made him a highly effective salesman both for his company’s products and his vision for the future of this technology. Or, as Paharia described Altman to BI, a “showman with rizz.”
Google may have found its equivalent in Kilpatrick. He told BI that he often posts on X because it has become something of a town square for AI developers and enthusiasts, all champing at the bit for the latest crumb of news. It’s a community filled with hype, AI “vagueposting”, and steeped deeply in lore (what did Ilya see?).
On a day that OpenAI’s latest release sucking is grabbing everyone’s attention, Kilpatrick may log on and post a single word — “Gemini” — just to rev the hype engine a little.
Kilpatrick often has “a thousand” emails from developers that need responding to, he told BI. “I spend probably as much time as I physically can responding to stuff these days,” he said. And that’s between the numerous product meetings (he had 22 meetings scheduled on the day we spoke in early July, 23 the day before). He once posted on X: “I am online 7 days a week, ~8+ hours a day. If you need something as you build with Gemini, please ping me!”
Developers say they like that Kilpatrick takes the time to engage and listen to their feedback. “The few times I’ve emailed him to get help with something, they near-instantly responded and helped resolve the issue,” said Near, the startup founder. “This is the opposite of my experience through normal support channels.”
Andrew Curran, an AI commentator who frequently posts to X, wrote last month that Kilpatrick had been “an incredible hire” for Google. “To a lot of people he is now the face of Gemini, I bet most people don’t even remember his OAI days,” he wrote.
Kilpatrick told BI that because he is a developer himself, he finds it easy to understand the core target user. He said this has helped in building out Google’s AI Studio, and that engaging with developers comes naturally. “It’s just the obvious thing to do if you want to build a product for developers, is like, go talk to your users,” he said.
He’s been an incredible hire for Google. To a lot of people he is now the face of Gemini, I bet most people don’t even remember his OAI days.
But the definition of developer is changing with approaches like vibe coding, which lets non-technical people create software by describing what they’d like to an AI tool.
“What it means to be a developer right now looks a little different than it did two years ago or three years ago, and I think it’s going to look fundamentally different in 10 years,” said Kilpatrick. He believes the developer group will “massively expand” in the next five years. His job at Google is to make the next generation believe Google is where they should be developing, but that job is also evolving in this new era of artificial intelligence.
“Our mandate is actually AI builders, already encompassing this group of people who maybe don’t identify as developers and don’t write code, but they build software using AI, and I think that’s going to accelerate in the next few years,” he said.
Donald Trump threatens extra 10% tariff for “anti-American” Brics policies
Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets, and the world economy.
DonaldTrump has targeted the BRICS group of developing nations in the latest salvo of his ongoing trade war, as the deadline to agree deals before the president’s 90-day tariff pause looms.
Trump has warned overnight that he will impose a new 10% tariff on any country that aligns itself with the BRICS group, claiming they are “anti-American”.
Writing on his Truth Social site, Trump declared:
Any Country aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of BRICS, will be charged an ADDITIONAL 10% Tariff. There will be no exceptions to this policy. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
Trump’s attack comes after the Brics group — which was originally made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa but now includes other nations — met in Brazil at the weekend.
Brazil’s president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, told the meeting in Rio de Janeiro that BRICS was the heir to the “Non-Aligned Movement” – the bloc of countries who declined to ally with either side in the Cold War.
Lula criticised the move (driven by Trump) towards increased spending on the military rather than on international development, pointing out: “It is always easier to invest in war than in peace”.
He told leaders they were witnessing “the unparalleled collapse of multilateralism”, before warning:
“If international governance does not reflect the new multipolar reality of the 21st century, it is up to BRICS to help bring it up to date.”
The BRICS group also condemned US and Israeli attacks on Iran and urged “just and lasting” solutions to conflicts across the Middle East.
All of which appears to have stirred Trump into another tariff threat.
There’s also confusion this morning about the status of the original ‘liberation day’ tariffs which Trump announced at the start of April, and then paused for 90 days after the markets slumped.
The president told reporters on Sunday that his administration plans to start sending letters later today to US trade partners dictating new tariffs.
But there’s confusion about when these levies would kick in. Trump implied they would start on Wednesday, saying “I think we’ll have most countries done by July 9, yeah. Either a letter or a deal.”
But commerce secretary HowardLutnick then weighed in to explain:
“But they go into effect on August 1. Tariffs go into effect August 1, but the president is setting the rates and the deals right now.”
Trump has subsequently posted that “TARIFF Letters, and/or Deals” will be delivered from 12:00 PM (Eastern)“ today, (that’s 5pm BST)
The agenda
Key events
Tesla shares drop after Musk launches America Party
Over in Frankfurt, shares in Tesla are sliding as the row between Elon Musk and Donald Trump escalates.
Telsa have fallen 3% in early trading, an indication that they could fall Wall Street when trading resumes, as investors react to Musk’s plan to launch a new US political party called the America Party.
Trump called the idea “ridiculous”, and claimed Musk had gone completely ‘off the rails’.
Veteran tech analyst DanIves of Wedbush said Musk was Tesla’s “biggest asset” and his decision to dive deeper into politics could hurt the car maker’s share price.
Ives wrote:
“Tesla needs Musk as CEO and its biggest asset and not heading down the political route yet again…while at the same time getting on Trump’s bad side.
“It would also not shock us if the Tesla board gets involved at some point given the political nature of this endeavour depending on how far Musk takes it.”
FTSE 100 opens slightly lower as Shell slides
London’s stock market has slipped very slightly at the start of trading.
The FTSE100 index of blue-chip shares has dropped by 9 points, or 0.1%.
Shell are the top faller, down 1.8%, after lowering its forecast for gas output and natural gas production this morning, and predicting that trading and optimisation at its integrated gas division in the last quarter will be significantly lower than in Q1.
StandardChartered (+1.4%), the Asia-Pacific focused bank, are the top riser.
UK house prices flat in June, Halifax reports
UK house prices stagnated last month, new data from lender Halifax shows.
Halifax reports that house prices were effectively unchanged month-on-month in June with the average price of a property sold coming in at £296,665, compared to £296,782 in May.
This pulled the annual rate of house price inflation down to 2.5% from 2.6% in May.
NorthernIreland has by far the strongest annual price growth in the UK, with prices up by +9.6% over the past year.
But, growth was much more subdued in the SouthWestofEngland, and London, with prices rising by just +0.5% and +0.6% respectively.
Amanda Bryden, head of mortgages at Halifax, said the UK housing market “remained steady in June”, adding:
“The market’s resilience continues to stand out and, after a brief slowdown following the spring stamp duty changes, mortgage approvals and property transactions have both picked up, with more buyers returning to the market. That’s being helped by a few key factors: wages are still rising, which is easing some of the pressure on affordability, and interest rates have stabilised in recent months, giving people more confidence to plan ahead.
Bryden pointed out that affordability is still stretched, particularly for those coming to the end of fixed-rate deals, explaining:
The economic backdrop also remains uncertain; while inflation has eased, it’s still above target, and there are signs the jobs market may be softening.
According to @HalifaxBank average house price growth was flat in June making the average property price now £296,665, down £117 on May’s efforts. Moving forward increased flex around mortgage lending and two rate cuts has the lender expectant of a more buoyant market towards the… pic.twitter.com/jdCqNEjyGt
Japan’s Nikkei225 index has dropped by 0.55%, Hong Kong’s HangSeng is down 0.4%, Australia’s S&P/ASX is off 0.15%, and India’s Sensex has slipped by 0.1%
Jim Reid, market strategist at DeutscheBank, says:
“Asian equity markets are a little nervous this morning, perhaps on Trump’s BRICs comments.”
Some BRICS currencies have also dipped this morning.
South Africa’s rand has fallen 1%, to 17.75/$ from 17.57/$ on Friday night.
India’s rupee has slipped by 0.5% against the dollar, to 85.8 rupees/$ down from 85.3925/$ at the end of last week.
China’s yuan has slipped by 0.1%, while Brazil’s real and Russia’s rouble are both flat.
Many currencies are slipping against the US dollar this morning, as traders await news of the tariff ‘deals and letters’ which Donald Trump says he will issue later today.
The euro has slipped by 0.15% against the dollar to $1.176, not too far from the near-four-year high touched last week.
The Australian dollar has lost 0.7%, while NewZealand’s dollar has dropped by 0.95%.
The British pound is also weakening a little, down 0.35% at just over $1.36.
So far, only the UK, China and Vietnam have reached any kind of trade agreements with the US in the last 90 days….
Donald Trump threatens extra 10% tariff for “anti-American” Brics policies
Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets, and the world economy.
DonaldTrump has targeted the BRICS group of developing nations in the latest salvo of his ongoing trade war, as the deadline to agree deals before the president’s 90-day tariff pause looms.
Trump has warned overnight that he will impose a new 10% tariff on any country that aligns itself with the BRICS group, claiming they are “anti-American”.
Writing on his Truth Social site, Trump declared:
Any Country aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of BRICS, will be charged an ADDITIONAL 10% Tariff. There will be no exceptions to this policy. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
Trump’s attack comes after the Brics group — which was originally made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa but now includes other nations — met in Brazil at the weekend.
Brazil’s president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, told the meeting in Rio de Janeiro that BRICS was the heir to the “Non-Aligned Movement” – the bloc of countries who declined to ally with either side in the Cold War.
Lula criticised the move (driven by Trump) towards increased spending on the military rather than on international development, pointing out: “It is always easier to invest in war than in peace”.
He told leaders they were witnessing “the unparalleled collapse of multilateralism”, before warning:
“If international governance does not reflect the new multipolar reality of the 21st century, it is up to BRICS to help bring it up to date.”
The BRICS group also condemned US and Israeli attacks on Iran and urged “just and lasting” solutions to conflicts across the Middle East.
All of which appears to have stirred Trump into another tariff threat.
There’s also confusion this morning about the status of the original ‘liberation day’ tariffs which Trump announced at the start of April, and then paused for 90 days after the markets slumped.
The president told reporters on Sunday that his administration plans to start sending letters later today to US trade partners dictating new tariffs.
But there’s confusion about when these levies would kick in. Trump implied they would start on Wednesday, saying “I think we’ll have most countries done by July 9, yeah. Either a letter or a deal.”
But commerce secretary HowardLutnick then weighed in to explain:
“But they go into effect on August 1. Tariffs go into effect August 1, but the president is setting the rates and the deals right now.”
Trump has subsequently posted that “TARIFF Letters, and/or Deals” will be delivered from 12:00 PM (Eastern)“ today, (that’s 5pm BST)
Co-founder of Scale AI and founder of Passes, Lucy Guo pivoted from the tech-bro world of artificial intelligence to the ‘Hollywood’ creator space. But AI has its place in content creation, says Lucy
08:00, 07 Jul 2025Updated 08:40, 07 Jul 2025
Lucy Guo left Scale AI back in 2018 for hazy reasons, citing “differences in product vision and road map”
Lucy Guo, founder and CEO of Passes, wants to turn content creators into millionaires. The 30 year old recently became a billionaire in her own right, though it’s “all on paper” as she told Forbes right before they crowned her the youngest self-made female billionaire in the world.
Passes is Lucy’s big bet in the creator economy. Speaking to The Mirror, she describes seeing “untapped potential” in the creator monetisation space back in 2020 after falling in with some content creators in Miami.
“I just saw how they could sell anything with an Instagram post or story” recalls Lucy. “I also saw how inconsistent their income could be.”
Her solution to the instability was for creators to monetise directly off their fan base, which would not only give creators direct, consistent income but the means to invest in other interests or business ventures. Ventures that could be passion projects or, as Lucy envisions, potentially large-scale product-based businesses.
Given Lucy’s significant background in AI, Passes’ approach is decidedly tech-forward compared to other fan subscriber platforms. While the technical approach separates Passes from its competitors, there’s been a lot of scepticism from creators about AI – viewed as both a potential competitor and thief. But Lucy is adamant AI’s utility will become clear.
“When creators realise the benefits of AI, they’re going to change their perception and they’re going to be very excited about it. But at the moment, there’s a lot of fear. And fear prevents you from looking at all the upsides.”
She continues: “The whole world is like ‘AI is going to take over’ and I’m just like ‘no, it’s going to be our co-pilot. It’s gonna be our best business partner’.”
AI will help content creators post quickly and often – which is key to long-term success according to Lucy. “We’ve actually noticed our creators that make the most money, they’re actually smaller. They have 200, 300,000 followers,” says Lucy. “My hypothesis is that it’s because they just churn out more content because it doesn’t need to be perfect”.
The question of what matters to fans boils down to speed and community, according to Lucy. “I would say in terms of what everyone wants it’s very, very fast customer service – whether the customer service they want is from the creator or from [Passes].”
Lucy names Twitch as a prime example of a platform where fan communities are valued and thrive(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Lucy also believes that women tend to lean more towards content creation and, simply put: “they’re better at it”.
“I think being a content creator requires a lot of empathy and being able to build relationships especially when they’re not in person. You’re building relationships with your fans digitally. And the traits needed to do that I think women are better at,” she explains.
By Lucy’s estimation, AI will make building those relationships easier and faster because it will free up creator’s time to engage fans and think creatively. But she will need to work on building meaningful relationships with creators to test her bet.
After Passes acquired the competitor site, Fanhouse in 2023, Lucy faced backlash from creators who felt blindsided by the acquisition. Creators found Passes’ lack of content guidelines and AI push alarming.
As reported by TechCrunch at the time, some creators grew worried about a tweet of Guo’s in which she stated that Passes was working on technology that could optionally make AI likenesses of creators. Concerns escalated after Twitch streamer Riley Rose pointed out that Passes does not have content guidelines on its website.
“It’s just that [Fanhouse’s] content guidelines are very, very specific,” Guo clarified to TechCrunch. She said that because Fanhouse used Stripe as its payment processor, the company had to be very clear with users about what they can and cannot post. “We do have content guidelines, it’s just more lax,” she explained.
Now, convincing creators to embrace AI and bring their fanbase to a new platform – many of whom aren’t accustomed to paying directly for their content – promises to be a tough sell even if Lucy is promising significant returns. And just as with fans, it isn’t all about the money for creators.
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