AI is making creators more valuable, not less

In June 1998, in the Spanish city of Leon, chess champion Garry Kasparov tried a bold experiment.

A month earlier, he had played Veselin Topalov at fast chess and won four games to nothing. Now the two of them sat down again, but this time each had a computer at his side. Kasparov used a program called Fritz 5. Topalov used ChessBase 7.0. Kasparov had invented the format himself and called it Advanced Chess.

The six main games ended level, three each.

Kasparov explained what happened years later, in The New York Review of Books on 11 February 2010:

"My advantage in calculating tactics had been nullified by the machine."

Garry Kasparov, The New York Review of Books, 2010

The computer took over the calculating. So the game came down to everything else: preparation, judgement, nerve and knowing which of the machine's ideas were any good. The contest didn't end. It moved to the human part.

That's exactly what's happening to creative work right now, and it's great news for creators.

The chain rule

David Autor, an economist at MIT, wrote the general version of this in the Journal of Economic Perspectives in 2015:

"When automation or computerization makes some steps in a work process more reliable, cheaper, or faster, this increases the value of the remaining human links in the production chain."

David Autor, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2015

Picture a job as a chain, where any weak link can break the whole thing. Make nine links cheap, fast and strong, and the tenth link becomes the one that matters most.

Now look at a brand deal. Writing the plan. Building a shortlist. Agreeing the price. Drafting the contract. Chasing the invoice. Reading the comments. Machines are getting quick at all of those.

The one link no machine can be is the person the audience believes. That's you. And the stronger the other links get, the more that last one is worth.

The prediction that went the other way

In 2016, Geoffrey Hinton, who later won a Nobel Prize for his work on neural networks, said: "People should stop training radiologists now." He repeated it in The New Yorker in April 2017, comparing radiologists to a cartoon coyote who has run off a cliff and hasn't looked down yet.

He was one of the smartest people in the field. And it turned out the other way.

Deena Mousa reported in Works in Progress in September 2025 that radiology was the second highest paid medical specialty in the United States, at an average of $520,000 in 2025. Training programmes offered a record 1,208 places that year, 4% more than in 2024.

Why? Reading the scan was the rule-like part, and machines did get good at it. But deciding what to do next, talking to a worried patient and taking responsibility for the call turned out to be most of the job. Machines took a task. People kept the job, and it grew.

What the research says about creative work

The latest studies point the same hopeful way.

• Earnings are holding up. Christos Makridis of Gallup looked at artists' earnings on 3 May 2026 and found that artistic jobs with more exposure to AI earn broadly what the less exposed ones earn. His summary: "AI is changing how artists work, not whether they work."
• The work is getting better paid. Ozge Demirci, Jonas Hannane and Xinrong Zhu found in Management Science in 2025 that, in the fields most touched by AI, the jobs being posted were "of greater complexity and offer higher pay".
• Teaming up with AI works. Researchers at the Stanford Digital Economy Lab reported in August 2026 that "in occupations where AI is used more to complement workers, employment is flat or rising, particularly among more experienced workers."

Put simply: the people who use AI as a helper are doing well, and the work is moving toward the interesting end.

What brands are really buying

Here's a question creators ask a lot: if a brand can make a video with AI, why would it pay me?

Because the video was never the thing it was buying. A brand is buying the attention of people who trust you. They watch you because of your taste, your humour, your honesty and the years you've spent showing up for them.

That trust doesn't move to a face a computer drew. It belongs to you.

How to make the most of it

1. Sell your judgement, not just your files. Anyone can make a draft now. What you decide to make, and why it works for your audience, is the real product.
2. Hand the boring half to tools. First drafts, captions, scheduling and admin. Then spend the hours you get back with your audience.
3. Protect your originality. Treat any AI draft as a starting point to argue with. Your own voice is what makes people choose you.
4. If you're new, start now. These tools help beginners the most. Our guide on whether it's worth becoming a creator in 2026 has the evidence and a 90 day plan.

Where Lumienzo fits

We built Lumienzo to run the busy half of every deal. Lumi learns what you make and who really watches you. Then it brings you brands that fit, and with escrow the money is locked before you film. Then it tracks every post and reads every comment, and what it learns goes into your next plan.

It doesn't make your videos, and it can't make your audience. That's your part, and it's the most valuable part of all. See how Lumienzo works for creators, with guaranteed payouts and 0% commission.