By Bill Kirwin, Chief of Research, A3E Research + Advisory Services
If you’re looking to invest in AI-tools to help creators such as writers, musicians, and graphic artists expand their creativity and productivity, what does the market really want?
The topic is generating a lot of talk by promoters, but at the Advanced Artist and Audio Exchange (A3E), we went in search of hard data to better qualify what the target users thought about artificial and augmented creativity. We surveyed 115 people in the musical arts between March and April 2021. The survey consisted of 23 questions but here, let’s simplify it by describing the three key organizing principles that emerged out of the data.
- Willingness: Are you willing to accept AI-enabled collaboration as part of the creative process?
- Preferences: How would you prefer to work with an AI-enabled collaborator?
- Outcomes: What results would you like to achieve with an AI-enabled collaborator?
Willingness - Are you willing to accept AI-enabled collaboration as part of the creative process?
We found that 57% of respondents already use AI-enabled tools in their day-to-day work and that there was low buying resistance with only 18% not comfortable or opposed to using additional AI-based resources. Additionally, the use of AI specifically in the creative process is the #1 ranked use case. This indicates a market that is increasingly tolerant or perhaps less fearful of technology disintermediating their careers.
Additionally, 63% of respondents are willing to work with an AI collaborator, while only 7% are not (30% are not sure). This indicates a significant propensity to ‘buy into’ this capability if it came to market.
We found that 48% would be willing to credit an AI collaborator on their work. This tells us that there is a fairly high tolerance for recognizing the contribution of an AI collaborator.
The biggest concern is the competency of the collaborative platform, with 94% stating that this would have great or some impact on their use. This is probably the easiest and most practical barrier for technologists to solve in bringing collaborative AI products to market.
However, there is continuing uncertainty regarding the actual intellectual property (IP) rights of an AI collaborator. This was the most frequently cited concern about AI-enabled collaboration. 48% rated it as their primary concern. This is a legitimate concern about the unresolved factors of digital IP that lie not in the hands of the suppliers or consumers of this emerging capability, but are subject to the vagaries of law, contracts, and governance.
Preferences - How would you prefer to work with an AI-enabled collaborator?
74% of respondents agreed that ‘AI could add a new dynamic and enhance my collaborative sessions.’ As noted above, the use of AI-enabled software tools in the creative process is already well established. However, the existing tools are the products of convergent AI that helps with a specific solution to a problem. We refer to these as a ‘paint-by numbers’ approach to creation and are highly prescriptive. We suggest that collaborative AI will deploy divergent AI that supplies many solutions to a problem. The #1 and #2 ranked challenges our participants would like to have a collaborative AI solve are ‘adding new artistic perspectives’ and ‘developing a new sound.’ We believe that divergent AI can enable new levels of interaction to engage users and expand creative horizons.
With that in mind, the community really wants to control the level of interactivity and have an interface that adapts to user changes in behavior. A customizable, adaptive interface is required to create and maintain the bond between artist and collaborator.
Multiple responses indicate that the use of this technology Is important in the creation and ideation processes, which is early in the production process. There is a paucity of software tools that apply to that part of the artistic process.
A sizable majority of our respondents would prefer, and potentially demand, that their AI collaborator know a lot about them, including their genres (72%), level of experience (69%), and influencers (64%). This suggests that AI-based collaboration tools must be trained on both broad, general bodies of work and on specific details of the user.
Fifty-nine percent of respondents also stated that they would like their AI to be a teacher as well as a collaborator. This brings the concept of mentorship to the use case. An AI mentor could be a collaborator, a teacher, and a coach. The opportunity to disintermediate and disrupt the artistic education market is huge.
End Results - What results and outcomes would you like to achieve with an AI-enabled collaborator?
Saving time was the most exciting outcome promised by collaborative AI. However, this is not as mundane as it seems. Our survey community wants to save time on rote tasks and make more time for the creative aspects of the job. So, to the degree the collaborator can also be the assistant to set up sessions and other tasks, there is more time for close following outcomes such as refining ideas and expanding artistic horizons. The degree that an AI mentor could provide technical and setup assistance may be a market differentiator.
Bottom line: Artificial Intelligence in general, and collaborative AI specifically, continues to gain acceptance with industry professionals. Market sentiment is largely positive, and most of the negative aspects are focused on technical issues that are surmountable. There is a small contingency of ‘never-AI’ users that are not likely to choose solutions where the AI-enabled functionality is transparent.
A3E believes this market segment is only beginning to be defined, and this research is focused on a very specific but important market sentiment. The industry professional market is likely to be an early adopter and key revenue source for collaborative AI solution providers.
However, the market for casual users would dwarf the professional market. We believe that casual user solutions are more likely to be delivered as part of a platform (i.e., Tik-Tok, Facebook, etc.) with a secondary revenue stream (e.g., advertising).
Beyond these three organizing principles, A3E also identified 14 key findings to help you guide your decision-making process. Contact Paul Sitar at pauls@a3exchange.com to discuss further engagement.
About A3E
The A3E Exchange is a catalyst for the creation and development of new applications, tools, instruments, technologies, and business models. A3E fosters development in both the creative tools and subsequent content creation using these tools – this is what we call A3E Digital Artistry™.
The A3E Exchange brings key stakeholders to the table to explore and discuss new opportunities and share their expertise, thoughts, ideas, and products. Our goal is to have the stakeholders explore the impact of the new tools and content of A3E Digital Artistry™ on content creators, fans, and consumers, and ultimately the businesses of the Entertainment Technology industry.
Finally, A3E + ARAS takes these two factors, the development and emergence of new entertainment platforms, technologies, and content, along with insights and expertise of key industry stakeholders’ feedback, discussions, ideas, and to provide the Entertainment Technology industry with agnostic, unbiased and independent research, data and business intelligence for use in strategic decision making.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.