In the world of digital media, Generative AI sparks both excitement and concern. This is especially true among publishers and independent content creators.

Last week, creators took a stand in New York City with the launch of Raptive’s ‘Keep It Real’ campaign, an advocacy effort designed to raise awareness about the impact of AI on their livelihoods.

As I sat in the room, listening to stories from food bloggers, designers, and country music aficionados, I couldn’t help but draw parallels between their challenges and the ones publishers face.

Digital media and advertising is grappling with a shifting landscape where AI threatens to commodify human creativity and diminish revenue streams. And if creators are rallying together to protect their work, shouldn’t publishers do the same?

Setting the Stage: The Creator’s Call to Action

ABC News anchor Linsey Davis was the surprise host of the day, opening the event by celebrating creators’ work as the “heart and soul of the internet.” Her words resonated throughout, highlighting the core message: creators — and, by extension, publishers — are the lifeblood of the web, facing challenges that deserve urgent attention.

But creators’ work is now threatened by the rise of generative AI, which scrapes content to deliver quick answers, often at the expense of the nuanced stories they bring to life.

Creators vs. AI: Navigating the SEO Shake-Up

The ‘Keep It Real’ campaign centers on a simple but powerful message: AI should innovate responsibly without exploiting the creators who pour their hearts into their work. Creators shared how generative AI scrapes and repurposes their work without consent or compensation. This issue hits home for publishers who have spent years building quality content to engage audiences.

Scott Messer‘s analysis of the latest SEO challenges for publishers sheds light on how Google’s introduction of AI-generated summaries and features like Search Generative Experience (SGE) alters search engine results pages (SERPs). This shift pushes traditional organic results further down the page, impacting CTRs for top organic positions. For creators, this means that even high-quality, nuanced content risks being overshadowed by generic AI outputs, threatening their visibility and revenue.

Kaitlin Leung of The Woks of Life illustrates the value of discoverable, human-created content: “We slowly but surely started to attract people who were so thankful and grateful to have found us because they were also looking for a similar platform to be able to learn about their heritage more, and cook recipes that kind of were always the domain of their parents or their grandparents or their aunts or their uncles.”

However, with AI-driven search results potentially limiting such discoveries, creators like Kaitlin worry that these meaningful connections between content creators and their audiences may become increasingly rare. It’s clear that AI poses threats, but some publishers are exploring ways to unlock AI opportunities that can preserve revenue and drive growth.

The Economic Impact of AI on Creators

Like creators, publishers rely on nuanced, human-generated content to attract audiences, which opens up the gates to advertising dollars. But with generative AI serving up bland, one-size-fits-all information, creators and publishers risk losing their unique voice — and, ultimately, their revenue.

Michael Sanchez, CEO of Raptive, puts this threat into stark perspective: “Let’s put this in human terms for Raptive creators, this is their livelihood. They do this full-time. It is the primary way they feed their families. There are 1000s of creators across Raptive who earn their living from their content and make less than $100,000 per year for one family, if they lose half of their traffic due to AI replacing their content, they lose half of their income.”

Today, 15% of every dollar advertisers spend on the open web goes through a Raptive site, earning creators over $2.5 billion in revenue. So a 50% reduction in traffic would impact individual creators’ revenue and threaten the broader creator economy, which supports millions of jobs.

Building Communities and Connections

Lindsay and Bjork Ostrom of Pinch of Yum said it best: The internet should continue to be a place where independent voices can thrive. It’s a sentiment publishers know all too well.

Echoing this idea, Tieghan Gerard of Half Baked Harvest, emphasized the importance of community building. “The time I spend on social media is the time I spend interacting with my community and building that community, making that community strong, and making those people feel heard. It’s so important. Nobody feels heard anymore, and we have the power to do that.”

The Role of Advertisers: Supporting Human-Generated Content

The ‘Keep It Real’ campaign calls on advertisers to invest in human-generated content that drives real results and engages audiences on a deeper level. As AI-generated content starts flooding the web, advertisers might be tempted to pour money into platforms that offer quick wins and endless streams of generic content. However, this approach undermines the authenticity that both creators and publishers bring to the table.

Marketers should consider how their media plans and spending align with the campaign’s message. How can the industry ensure that advertising dollars support high-quality, human-centric content?

This could mean reassessing where programmatic buys are directed or prioritizing direct partnerships with publishers who maintain human touchpoints in their content.

Publishers It’s Time to Innovate Responsibly

In creators’ rally for responsible innovation, they want it to be known —  they’re not anti-AI; they’re pro-ethical AI. They want to be part of the conversation, advocating for systems that value their contributions.

Publishers, too, must find ways to leverage AI responsibly while supporting the creator economy, ensuring that both creators and publishers can thrive. That might mean adopting practices that respect the human element of content creation or finding ways to collaborate with creators on shared initiatives that promote authentic, valuable storytelling.

Ad Tech and the Human Connection

Programmatically, ad tech builds a bridge between advertisers and the content that audiences consume. This connector role directly impacts the future of human-generated content online.

It’s time to explore how ad tech can support responsible AI practices that don’t undercut the human connections at the heart of the digital ecosystem.

It’s time to ask: How can ad tech support an internet where independent voices can thrive? It may involve prioritizing ad placements on websites that invest in human-generated stories or encouraging advertisers to value quality over quantity in their content partnerships.

What the Ad Tech Industry Can Do to Keep It Real

• Collaboration: Just as creators are banding together to advocate for their rights, publishers need to engage in collective action. Working with industry bodies to push for fair practices in AI use is a start.
• Support Quality Content: Encourage advertisers to align their spending with websites that offer the depth, nuance, and authenticity AI can’t replicate.
• Advocate for Fair Practices: Push for more transparency in AI’s use of content, ensuring that creators and publishers are fairly compensated when their work is used to train AI models.

The Path Forward: Keeping the Internet Human

At the event, creators emphasized that the fight for fair AI use is only beginning. As they advocate for their rights and the protection of their livelihoods, the entire ad tech ecosystem has a stake in this conversation, especially publishers.

By standing together and championing authentic, human-driven content, you can ensure that the internet remains a place where creativity and community thrive. The road ahead calls for collaboration, innovation, and a shared commitment to keeping it real.

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