@Hank Green admits he may have overused ChatGPT, mostly for research, in making his content… and promised to scale back after a fan backlash.  I have a lot of thoughts here.  

First, congrats to Hank for apologizing to his audience and being so transparent.  AI can be a harsh mistress…  used right it can do great things, but as Hank found out, you have to channel your inner Roz: “I’m watching you, ChatGPTski… always watching”.  

Second, you can never let up when using AI to help with content. You may think you have it mastered but the tool improves faster than our control evolves. Hank’s admission is a wake-up call for all of us flirting with AI’s potential as it insidiously infiltrates our creative, professional and personal lives.

Third, anyone who has followed Hank knows that he builds in public, but not for everyone.  His community of nerdfighters and fans are all that matter.  That’s a breath of fresh air, and even though he may lose followers, he continues to do right by his audience. And he’s addressing out loud what so many of us are privately freaking out about.

And before any of us pile on, remember: “only he who is without sin has the right to cast the first stone.” Roughly 75-80% of creators are already using AI somewhere in our process, according to studies from Kit, Wondercraft and others. Most of us are in no position to hurl brickbats.

Finally, Hank’s process isn’t only right for his content and his fans, it’s a case study in how to be uniquely human in the age of AI. Being honest, admitting mistakes, and working to fix them is one of the things that will separate humans from the machines. Anyone who has called GenAI out for a mistake knows that its sycophantic apologies ring more hollow than microtubules and bird bones. Stay human.

TBH, I did not know what a microtubule was until AI helped me with research.  BUT I did verify with the NIH and Wikipedia. (Reddit)

At least on Instagram.  That’s the conclusion of new research from Ravineo, the new analytics company from SocialBakers founder @Jan Rezab.  After analyzing 44k Instagram creators after their first boosted/paid-partnership reel, and comparing their post performance against those who’ve never boosted, no penalty was discovered at all.  But reach was clearly down across the board.  It’s what we call a spurious correlation, when two things can be true but entirely unrelated.

So what happened to reach?  Supply and demand.  Over the last year the quantity of reels doubled while the amount of reels consumed stayed flat.  In other words, more inventory drove down views per reel.  It’s directionally compelling, as it explodes the entire basis for creators on Instagram getting additional money for boosting to compensate for future lost reach. 

But beware the source.  Ravineo sells boost-detection to brands and does better when boosting grows.  Every conclusion in this report strips leverage from creators and hands it to brands and agencies.  And just because boosting doesn’t depress future reach, it doesn’t mean creators shouldn’t charge extra for boosting.  Brands should pay more to reuse your media and your face and voice in their own ads.

LinkedIn just launched an anti-slop button.  It’s an interesting addition, but I’m not sure many will use it.  It could also be gamed.  @Jeremy Boissinot lays out the case against, @Matt Navarra is “so here for it”.    My uninformed take?  It’s probably the digital equivalent of the “ >|< “ door close button in an elevator.  It makes you feel good but does nothing. (Jeremy Boissinot, Matt Navarra)

Fan conventions are beginning to ban wearable glasses that secretly record everything.  Monopoly events, a UK producer of Comicon, just announced that attendees caught using smart glasses from Meta or other companies will be asked to leave.

I see both sides here.  First, fan conventions are safe spaces to be yourself, whether it’s by cosplaying, watching your favorite creator on stage, or connecting with other fans who share your passion.  And oftentimes these slices of our lives are not necessarily something we want the rest of the world to focus on.

But there are real human benefits to this technology, for disabled attendees, including memory, vision and other conceptual tasks.  You could even argue that they could make the experience itself better.    The creepy downside, though, is real.  

Eventually most technology pushes through early creepy signals… or it simply gets so small and integrated that it essentially disappears.  But it can take 25 years or more for that to happen, as the generation that grows up with the tech accepts it far more readily than those that have it thrust upon them. Until then I don’t envy anyone wrestling with this issue.(BBC)

We are seeing the rise of performance over originality, as the creator marketing stack matures. Just last week Google expanded the checkout part of its paid Demand Gen ad feature, and Brunner bought Adskate, applying AI-powered diagnostics to creator posts.  The new loop, as far as I can tell:  

Creator Produces Content → Brand Buys Usage Rights → Platform Amplifies It → Software Analyzes It → Commerce System Measures Conversion → Winning Elements Get Reproduced   (Google Ad & Commerce Blog, PR Newswire

Sometimes it’s hard to tease the truth out of “studies” developed by companies with a strong commercial bias.  Metricool’s latest, which compared nearly 800,000 YouTube videos from Feb 2025 to Feb 2026 seems to imply that they’re researching the entire YouTube corpus.  But the sample isn’t random across YouTube, it only analyzes Metricool accounts… a company that sells post scheduling services.

But inside, there’s real data for creators.  First, from my read of the data, there’s a clear mid-tail monetization squeeze for the creator middle class, as RPM appears to be falling. And with 61% of organic views happening on Shorts, but revenue sparse, creators should treat it as awareness but not a reliable funnel for long-form views.  But correlation is not causation here. There’s no evidence that more shorts views cause an increase in long-form consumption.  

And think twice before posting long-form more than 2-4 times a week, as views per video tend to drop. Post more than 7 times a week  and you’ll see a decline in overall total views.  This year’s sweet spot?  Creators with 2k-10k subscribers saw the biggest growth momentum on both Shorts and Long form.

Also when it comes to discovery, subscriber counts have been seriously devalued, with only 11% of views coming from subscribers and a paltry 3% via your channel page.  And even though total minutes watched is up 11%, average view duration is down 37%.  My take: Shorts is eating the platform, and this explains YouTube keeps pushing longer form videos, subscriptions and TV viewing. (Metricool)

Sprout Social’s latest report validates the devaluing of the follower/subscriber result from the Metricool study above, but this time on Instagram, finding that 60% of Reels creators reach audiences that are over 70% non-followers…  and consumers by and large don’t even check follower count.  The report also focuses on non-traditional influencers, including employee generated content (EGC), and AI simulations.  Even though only 25% of respondents were comfortable with AI influencers, Sprout says marketers need to prepare as the technology matures.

The EGC portion is particularly validating.  I’ve been talking about the EGC trend for over two years, it seems marketers, brands and vendors are finally catching up.  More than half of those surveyed see content from employees at least weekly and 40% discover a new product from those creators at least once a month. 77% say it happens occasionally or more often.  This trend has arrived.

The report also found that there’s a mismatch between what brands spend and where consumers value creators in the purchase loop.  Consumers use influencers for bottom of funnel actions, as two-thirds bought based on a recommendation from a creator, but at 24%, marketers rank conversion near the bottom of their funding plans…  with brand awareness leading at 50%.

Add it all up, and as GenZ gains purchase power, the funnel will collapse into the creator layer, as today half of them prefer influencers, and only 15% prefer ads.   

This study is a vendor survey that paints the company in a positive light. A third party polled 2,250 social users (1k in the US, 1k in the UK, 250 in Australia) and used opt-in panels for just 296 marketers.  Directional for consumers, less directional for marketers.  But still, many of the findings correlate between Metricool and others we’ve discussed here over the past few months.  The picture of creators beating ads, the devaluation of follower counts, and the power of creators continues to come more clearly into focus. (Sprout Social)

A new research study from influencer agency G&B and Bobbie titled “New Laws of Creator ROI doesn’t, actually, well, measure ROI. 

Set that aside and there are some interesting findings, albeit only from one agency’s five-year book of business.  They found that creator pricing has stabilized, deal cycles have compressed and repeat partnerships are on the rise.   They also saw the tech category leading fee growth substantially over fashion and beauty. 

The conclusion that’s probably legit for all?  Budget off of this year’s numbers not those from last year, and treat the first deal as the start of a beautiful relationship.  (G&B)

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