Our 2026 Creator Economy Predictions

0:00Okay, before we get into these predictions, question for you. Do you think you speak 2025? Do I speak 2025? Is this a TikTok trend? No, this is the New York Times, Colin. Okay. This is a quiz. Oh, I definitely don't speak 2025. Let me guess. Let me guess. This is like 6 '7". Yeah, that stuff. I'm not going to ask you those questions. Those are obvious. But let's just start with question one, the easiest one. Imagine you're wearing a new outfit. What culinary term would you not want someone to use about your appearance? Cooked. That's not an option. Eight, served, chopped, devoured. Chopped. Chopped, correct.

0:41Ding, ding, ding. Wow, impressive. Okay. Okay. Question two, a little bit harder. In 2025, what fairy tale inspired the new impolite slang term for dating people who are perceived not to be on par with their mates? I barely understood that, but you want me to guess before you deliver it? No, it's multiple choice. You're just guessing randomly. I haven't done multiple choice in like 20 years. Okay. Shreking, Beauty and the Beasting, Cinderellaing, Princess and the Frogging. I'm going to go princess and the frogging. Is that right? You would be incorrect, my friend. It is Shrek-ing. Yeah. Okay, last one, and then we'll get into predictions.

1:24In 2025, which of the following scenarios might one crash out about? Select all that apply. Winning the lottery? Getting bed bugs? Running out of creatine powder? Getting a promotion? Forgetting a Netflix password? Seeing your ex post a new partner? getting a free flight upgrade. Anything negative there you would crash out about. Okay, so getting bedbugs? Bedbugs, losing your Netflix password, something about the X. Okay, I can't even... Oh, yeah, I can't click on these. Okay, getting bedbugs, running out of creatine powder? Sure, you can crash out about that. Okay, so you're... You probably have crashed out about that.

2:03All correct. Well done. Okay, turns out... I guess I do. You kind of speak 2025. That's surprising to me. That is surprising. I mean, this is the New York Times. Some of these are pretty obvious. That feels base level. Yeah, I'll just read the question number seven before we move on. The Italian brain rot crew, an absurd group of AI-generated creators, became a meme that flooded TikTok in 2025. Which three of the following names were not breakout Italian brain rot stars? There's no shot I'm getting that. Trollero, Tralala, Bella Bella Carmela, Ballerina Cappuccini. You can stop there. Bombadero Crocadillo.

2:44Yeah. I mean, there's two more that I'm not going to read, but that's like one of the most absurd questions I've seen. Anyway, I thought this was really funny and something that the New York Times did that actually Hank Green did in a video that made me laugh. So that's pretty good. Some of these questions. But here we are the end of 2025, another year in the books. And I would say a year that kind of surprised me in the creator economy, to be honest. Yeah, yeah. I think heading into 2025, I was weirdly a little bit pessimistic, actually, about the crater economy. I felt like maybe it was not a fad that was over, but a story that people were less interested in and that it had started maybe evolving a little bit less and changing and progressing.

3:35And this year, it felt like it just shot way into the future. Yeah, I think it felt similar to, you know, there was eras over the past five years that people got really into. Crypto was an era. AI became a bit of an era. But I think what you realize is within those eras, there's things that stick. And it felt like the creator economy was one of those eras. Like there was a moment where the creator economy was a very hot term. But I think what has stuck is just that people who are good at making videos and telling stories are just good at making videos and telling stories. And we've always had space for that.

4:13And what has changed is watch time on televisions. Yeah. Right. That like viewer behavior sitting and watching on TV has just changed completely what the creator economy is because now we're in the same environments on the same screen as some of these major streamers. And we're seeing, you know, the challenges of trying to make money in the Hollywood environment when you're spending$100 million or$70 million on something. So it feels like I thought we were over the mountain of the creator economy moment, but recognizing that is not a moment. It's just the entertainment industry now. Like we are and that is it is just on the rise that that independent creators continue to be on the rise.

4:59So within that, just when we talk about what's happening in the creator economy, we've been experimenting with a format called In or Out, which if you guys watch our shorts or us on Instagram right now, basically we talk about a subject and then we debate if we are in or out on that subject. I've picked six things that I think will be trends that we will continue to see in 2026. I'm going to bring them up and then we will talk about if we are in or out on these trends for 2026. All right. Starting with number one, the video podcast. Now, quick stat. YouTube has become the absolute dominating platform when it comes to video podcasts.

5:43A really interesting stat from YouTube, 700 million hours of video podcast content was watched on living room devices in October of 2025. The viewership of video podcasts on YouTube is up 75 % year over year. When we look at 2026, are you in or out on the video podcast? I'm out. And I will tell you, I was walking. Wow, that is crazy. I know, and we are video. We are video podcasters. I'm not saying that people won't find success with video podcasts. I think there will be a group of people, of course, who are finding major success with video podcasts. Definitely the biggest, the heaviest hitters.

6:26I was speaking with Hayden Hillier-Smith about two weeks ago. We were taking a walk, and we were talking about this, about whether podcasts are truly over the hump, the video podcasts. And he told me, he said, you know what? I think Haley Welch with the Hawk to a Girl, that was peak podcast. This idea that in culture, if you hit, if something happens to you, the next step is a podcast. You've got to have a podcast. Everyone wants to listen to you now. Capitalize on your moment. Start a podcast. And he told me, you know what? I think that was the beginning of the decline of the video podcast culturally in the place that it holds in sort of Hollywood and entertainment in capturing attention that potentially that was the beginning of the end that it became oversaturated.

7:21I think that's a really good like good observation. I think that might have been the moment it died. Because remember Bobby Althoff preceded that, right? And Bobby Althoff had a moment and then started a podcast. I think the classic saying, ain't nobody got time for that, is kind of how I feel about video podcasts and podcasts in general right now. And I'm a podcaster, but I understand if you don't have time to listen to you and I talk about what we think is going to happen in 2026 and the creator economy. I get it if you have other things to do. Can I tell you a good story? Yeah. So we're watching the Trackstar podcast on YouTube, my wife and I, and the intro plays, and it's this really beautiful, great intro for their podcast.

8:08And she goes, you guys should have an intro for your podcast. I said, we do. Yeah. Right. Ain't nobody got time for that. Ain't nobody got time for that. Even my wife. Yeah. But no, I mean, like, look, we get comments too, and I empathize with it. You know, that people say, hey, like, I just, I actually don't have time for an hour and 45 minutes with this creator. Can you please post clips or highlights? Yeah. So Diary of a CEO, great example, started a clips channel. Some of those clips are outperforming the episodes and the clips are in the 20 minute range or 12 minute range. And like, obviously, it's been a strategy forever.

8:41But even with us, as we've been experimenting in short form with this in or out, the question is, what is a two minute podcast look like? Or is that even a podcast? What is what is that? I know a lot of that, you know, driven. If you've been listening to the show, you've heard us ad nauseum talk about Kareem and subway takes. But he has a quote where he says, what if I made a podcast with just the best parts? And I think we are at that moment where to get to a weekly video podcast that people are diehard about, I think will be challenging in 2026. I think there are shows like Trackstar, not necessarily a long-form podcast, but the short-form version of it, that that to me is what we're seeing as the modernization of the talk show.

9:26But the question here is that, like, of course, this is a massive genre on YouTube. It's also coming to Netflix now. And this is just like top content in general. My Next Guest with David Letterman is a great example of this. yeah I think I think I am it's hard for me to say in or out here because I think this format will be highly monetizable and will have there will be more of them in 2026 but I think when we look at the long-term view I do think the audience in general is going to have fatigue over like the two-hour podcast and won't be loyal to the two-hour podcast that's that's what I think is the most important thing is that it will be guest dependent.

10:11It will be topic dependent. It will be like if there's a controversy and you can hear someone talk about what's going on or like after Jake Paul fought Anthony Joshua, you know, the next morning he's on Logan Paul's podcast and a lot of people wanted to hear him talk about that. So there you go. That podcast did really well. So I think it'll be event based and topic based and guest based. But the loyalty to the video podcast, I think just remains in comedy right now, in comedy podcasting. Because comedy consistently delivers on that group hang sort of experience. Yeah. And it's a way to learn about the news that's fun.

10:50With entertainment. With entertainment. So I think that's what I'm noticing. And I'll talk a little bit more about that. So yeah, I feel like with podcasts, it used to be about getting the big guest, getting the big interview. But now every guest is on every show. So it's about getting the big guest at the big moment. Yes. That's what matters now. And there will only be a handful of shows that get the big guest at the big moment. Yes. Another example of this real quick is Tim Ferriss. He started posting clips of his podcast on YouTube with the full length being, you know, across other pod platforms.

11:25And the clips are doing great. And clips meaning 12 minutes or 20 minutes And like, I'm looking at that and I'm like, yeah, that makes sense. I think people have time for a 12 minute specific pointed moment. I'll post a clip in 2026. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid. Okay. Number two, AI generated video. Now I want to be really clear about this one because a report just came out and it's really interesting. So what these guys did is they started new YouTube accounts and went on shorts and started to see how many of the shorts that they were getting fed were AI generated versus human created.

12:10And what they found is that 20 % of the videos were AI generated. And that doesn't include, you know, kind of like brain rot content. And they added that in as well and basically saw that somewhere between 20 and 33 percent of YouTube shorts shown to new users are either AI generated, quote unquote, slop or repetitive brain rot. And basically, as they dug deeper, what they found was like there's actually some areas and some some companies that are like really winning with this content. There is an Indian YouTube channel called Bandar Apna Dost. And it is the most watched AI channel globally. It has over 2 billion views.

13:01And it is estimated to earn$4.25 million in revenue this year. My gosh. And collectively, between Spain, South Korea, India, and all the slop channels that they found, they are estimating that they collectively earned 33 million dollars per year based on the view estimates and the RPMs now importantly uh Neil Mohan has recently talked about AI generated video on YouTube and said we are getting back to a return to to what YouTube was when it first started where the barrier to entry is low there's a lot more content more people can create and honestly when i think back to early days of youtube and my experience on youtube there was a lot of weird stuff like annoying orange or like the my spoon is too big videos yeah i mean we also sometimes would post multiple times a day yeah right you just looked at it differently there there weren't as many options for video on the internet period so it was the home to just upload videos so so So this trend, like, what does this mean?

14:11Because, like, this feels significant that if 20 % of the videos that a new user is getting fed are AI-generated content, and people are making money on YouTube doing this. Like, there was another creator who reported that they made$9 ,000 in a month posting AI-generated kitten videos. I'm out. I'm out in that I'm not necessarily interested in spending time scrolling through AI slop and brain rot. However, on the other side of this, as a creator, I am without a doubt prompting video and seeing what I can do with it and changing the styles and, you know, experimenting with animation. And, you know, I find it fascinating.

15:05Yeah. As a tool to layer on my taste and do things I couldn't do before. You know, there are some of the things that I'm experimenting with in AI video are not relevant to what we do with a long form video podcast. But I feel like I'm still building skills that that will be important. And I just find it. It's like entertainment. you've brought this up before like prompting with ai for me is entertainment um i could be watching a video or i could be making video but i i wonder what this means for the the future of audiences where like you know i have discounted this trend of ai generated video in our feeds because i'm like this doesn't matter nobody actually wants to watch this and it's not like commercial content like you can't make money on it but but these channels are proving things differently and actually this this indian channel i would urge a lot of people to go check out um if you want to be able to spell it it's in hindi but it's b-a-n-d-a-r-a-p-n-a-d-o-s-t because it's really bizarre to watch it's like a character it's a monkey character who's like doing interesting things and uh hundreds of millions of views and and um able to crank out content at a serious scale.

16:25So just to clarify, I am also out on this. I think this is a bizarro world, but I don't doubt that good content can be created like this. I really don't doubt that. I'm out on bad content that wastes my time. I think videos and stories told with AI that are good I'm not out on. Right. So, you know, I think it's just, it's a tool. I think, you know, Progressive made an ad using AI with a bunch of animals driving a car. I think it's Progressive. And if you look at the bottom, it says this made with AI. And it's only interesting because of that disclaimer at the bottom. Right. Right now. but long term people are going to get so good at prompting and creating video with ai i don't think we're going to have to put made with ai at the bottom of a commercial right it's just gonna like i i'm not putting that like hey i made this graphic with after effects while you're watching right right right you know like yeah yeah so i yeah i think long term that's just going to go away and it's just going to be about bad content that wastes your time yeah so again i think what good content that makes you feel good i think this report uh will honestly urge more people to create ai generated video and post it on youtube because like why not like if you can make this kind of money why would you not if you were like a business person or someone who's like okay sure i'll just make a large volume of content if it doesn't work it doesn't work but if it works, it works.

18:05And I think this is going to push the inverse effect of like, at least for me, what this makes me want to do is make more meaningful content. Even if it's 20 ,000 to 50 ,000 people watching, it's like more interesting to make meaningful content. I do think this trend will reduce viewership for creators. Yes. I think we will see less viewership across all creators on YouTube because there is going to be more content and more interesting content that is coming out at a output volume that we've never seen before. And I agree that's a net negative. I think the next but I don't know if it's a net negative because the audience who wants to watch that who cares if you lose them.

18:53Right. Yeah, I guess. But if the trend of history with young people watching these videos and getting exposed to this AI slot because it's more prevalent, if it creates generations of people who are more interested in that. Yeah. Right. Brain rot was the word of the year, I think. Yes. It's true. Okay. Can I quickly layer on one more in or out? Yeah. That has to do with this. Okay, so Greg Eisenberg tweeted this a few weeks ago. I thought it was interesting. He said, it feels pretty obvious at this point that someone's going to make billions building a social app that's just for friends, no AI slop, no brain rot, calm design, chronological feed, and no concept followers.

19:37You believe that? No. I don't either. I think we're past that as a society. I don't think we care. I think that's a niche thing. I don't think that's billions of dollars. I think it's niche and I think we're all holding on to the nostalgia of what was, not realizing how beautiful that was when we had it. And that can't happen again, in my opinion. I think that's filled with people who end up having the self-discipline to go outside and put the phone down. Exactly. Yeah. It's filled with people who don't want to be on their screen. So I do want to just, while we go into this, like the concept of creators viewership going down.

20:16I was texting with my cousin who's in college at Michigan and she texted me after listening to one of our episodes saying, by the way, my screen time is just as bad as yours on Instagram. But I don't really follow any quote unquote creators. I just watch a bunch of reels. And I said, wow, that's really interesting. This is the second conversation I've had about this. I mentioned to you I had a conversation with two kids who are at Harvard who also said they don't watch quote unquote creators. and I said yeah I just talked to some people some other college kids they said they just watched TikTok edits and that they find creators to be too commercial and she said yeah I guess that's it I have a fear of being too advertised to yeah when you told me this I thought it was interesting that potentially creators end up having a negative connotation with the younger generation because they feel like they're trying too hard and they're too commercial and they're going to sell you something and so i said that's so interesting are you loyal to any shows podcasts or creators is there anything you make sure to watch weekly she said podcasts i definitely listen to a bunch but i just pick randomly based on guests or topics i don't really listen to every episode of any show every week the only thing that i was loyal to this year was dancing with the stars.

21:36It's the only thing I've cared about watching every week in a while. And I said, that is so interesting. Is that because of Alex Earl or how did that happen? She said, no, it's because I live in a sorority house. I said, that makes sense. But I think we are at a point where we may not have as much loyalty to creators. Interesting that I share that viewing behavior with her. And I, of course, do not. I'm not a part of a sorority. Kind of, though. Your house has, like, sorority house. It does. Yeah, it has a sorority house feel to it. Yeah.

22:14So, this brings me to my next point. The summarization of content. So, I have been using the Gemini button on YouTube. Content being summarized. I thought you meant the season. No, no, no. I was like, this sounds fun. No, no, no, no. Uh... Like, have you used this on YouTube? There's videos. And I used this most recently when all the FaZe kids left FaZe. And there was a long video. It's like an hour long. And it was like the real story why we left FaZe. And they're all sitting on a couch. And I opened it back to the top of the show. I was like, ain't nobody got time for this. And I pressed summarize this video.

22:56And Gemini gave me bullets of what happened. And I was like, cool, I'm good. And I moved on. I haven't done that, but I have on YouTube mobile. When you scroll, it'll just give you a quick summary of what's inside. From Gemini. Yeah, underneath. Yeah. Yeah. So the summarization of content is a really big deal because, like, that's me not watching an hour of that phase video because I can just get it in bullets underneath. I guess the question, though, is like, you know, I watched to bring up Hayden again. I watched a video that he made this morning about five videos that he really likes and what they mean for YouTube.

23:43If you read the AI generated summary, it does not tell you what the five videos are. It doesn't tell you what you should learn from those five videos. But you're reading like, dude, if you go into the ask, you can prompt that. I guess that's what I'm saying is that I haven't done that. Yeah, you haven't done that. I started doing this where right here. Okay, so underneath the video, there's a button that says ask. Sure. Right? And it's the Gemini button. So I can say right here, the first prompt that's auto-prompted is summarize this video. Okay, so I'm actually now doing that for Hayden. Yeah.

24:18And so now it gives you the five videos. And now it gives you why he thinks these five videos are the future. That's a pretty big deal. It's a really big deal that I don't think we're talking about. And when I looked at where things are going and when I think about 2026, I think the summarization of content is a really big deal. If this takes off. Well, I think people are doing this, and I've done this, where I'll look at a really long article, I'll download the PDF of it, and I'll put it into Gemini and be like, explain this to me. And that's changing. That's true. I'm summarizing everything.

24:54You're summarizing everything, right? And so then you go, you watching that Hayden video, I wrote down, like, why does this matter? Because I think perspective, delivery, and entertainment now matter a lot more when I can just summarize something. Like, Hayden delivers that video really well. And that's fun to watch. But it makes me think that smart content, like academic content, doesn't really have a place at scale on the internet anymore versus comedy and entertainment. Yeah, without personality and perspective. Because academic content, I can just get summarized. I'm looking for an efficient way to get the information.

25:34And this button, ask, is so substantial. so if you're playing around on youtube i would urge you to just start exploring this and seeing what this means when you can summarize content it changes the dynamic of like in information is not that interesting like why would information be interesting now you can get information you just get it so now it's like perspective and entertainment value and uh again why i'm starting to notice that when i ask a lot of people who they're loyal to it's mostly comedians so the summarization of content are you in or out on this this is tough because now that you've brought this up i'm doing it for videos as we speak uh and it's really efficient and but it's like that means the video watching thing like video watching process is not fun yeah i actually what does that mean what this means huh I'm just doing it right now with our episode with Casey Neistat just asked for five of the most important bullets from the conversation it gets into making art versus the algorithm, the value of niche content his perspective on commercializing art, navigating Hollywood yeah so like the only reason to watch it is because you enjoy the three of us talking and you want to hear the inflection and you want to hear what it sounds like.

27:07But what if ain't nobody got time for that? That's what I'm saying. Ain't nobody got time for that. Damn. So the summarization of content, I think as a consumer, it's been a really great way to learn a lot of things really quickly. As a creator, you know what? Actually, in general, I'm going to say I'm in on this because as a creator I think this is going to push us to actually make entertaining stuff yeah you kind of have to play defense against you're just like information being available everywhere you need to add perspective you need to add style, tone, taste basically we have to take a step back and go if you summarized this is it enjoyable?

27:44did it capture the full experience? is it already the whole experience if you just pressed ask and summarized this video? and if so we have to do something totally different right? And so I really wonder what happens to some of these education channels and information-based channels. Because it's like... I think they get pushed to make more visual, interesting content with style and taste and tone. Yeah. That's interesting. All right. So you're in or out on it? I'm in. I mean, you brought it up to me and I started using it immediately. So I guess I'm in. Okay. Summarization of content. All right.

28:22creators on streamers we've talked about this a lot is this something that continues in 2026 is it over after a couple of deals no no no i think this continues in a major way okay let's talk about it i just think we've talked about it before but netflix does a deal with mark rober they repackage 10 of his greatest hits from youtube lightly repackaged them it's a top 10 show on netflix is the number one kid show of course the people who watched on netflix it's a much smaller audience but it's a different audience for mark and they bought a competition series for him and he had an elmo special on netflix right he starts to become a character in a different environment next to other actors and hosts who people deem fully a part of hollywood Right.

29:11You look at Hulu. They did a very similar thing with Jesser. A lot of Jesser's videos, same thumbnail, same title. I don't even think they're re-edited and they're just on Hulu right now. And so I think from a creator perspective, if you have videos where you own the rights to everything within the video and you can license it and sell it to someone else, why not? Money, new audience, these videos are old anyway. Does this happen, though, with original shows? Like, you know, one thing that we're seeing, especially with the 2025 YouTube Culture and Trends Report, one big trend that YouTube brought forward was the rise of the series, that creators are now putting out content in series.

29:53So Drewski has a dating show called Could Have Been Loved. It's basically like The Bachelor. iShowSpeed has Speed Goes Pro, and he just launched a new series of Speed Goes to Africa, which had a trailer to it. It's a series. Quinlan Blackwell has a series called Feeding Starving Celebrities. These look and feel like TV shows. Even Nico Omolana. Nico Omolana right now. Zero-pound travel series, Traveling the World with Zero Dollars. Yep. It looks and feels like TV. He just seems like a host on any show. Yeah. So now the question becomes, why do that on Netflix? When isn't YouTube the biggest streamer?

30:35The model is you put it out first on YouTube as the biggest opportunity to reach the most amount of people. And if you're reaching the most amount of people, you have the biggest opportunity to monetize it. But then once you've already made it, monetize it twice. like you put on YouTube TV and The Office is still on every single day all the time. Did you see the chart of the most watched TV shows of 2025 from Uber? Was it like The Office ridiculousness? No, it wasn't ridiculousness. The Office is squarely in the middle of it, which is crazy to me and unbelievable that's still there. But it was mostly like Cops and NCIS and like stuff like that.

31:14It was like the most watched TV shows of the year. It's pretty amazing. Stranger Things was up there And so I feel bad about a couple episodes being like, nobody cares about Stranger Things because clearly people care about Stranger Things. So I was wrong. But anyway, I was amazed to see The Office in there. But yeah, what I wonder is, do things start going the opposite direction? So Netflix invests in some season of TV, let's say, right? Like, a great example is this. My Next Guest with David Letterman is a talk show that has a bunch of episodes with Jason Bateman and Adam Sandler and big celebrities.