Artificial Intelligence and the Creator Economy: Conceptualization and Research Propositions

This article examines the intersection of the rapidly growing creator economy and artificial intelligence (AI). Addressing the lack of a comprehensive conceptualization of AI’s role in the creator economy, the authors conceptualize the impact of cocreating with AI on customer engagement. The conceptual framework distinguishes between the domain of AI cocreation (content vs. process) and degree of AI involvement (augmentation vs. substitution), while incorporating two critical boundary conditions (privacy concerns and transparent disclosure of AI use) that inform the relationship between AI deployment and customer engagement. Nine research propositions integrating resource-based theory, self-determination theory, and signaling theory alongside service-dominant logic examine how these human-AI configurations shape audience engagement. The multi-theoretic grounding represents a significant advance over prior conceptual work in this domain. This paper offers a novel multi-actor cocreation framework, provides strategies for marketers, creators, platforms, and policymakers, and outlines directions for future research.