Back in the late 2000s, Amazon launched Kindle Direct Publishing, allowing anyone to sell books on the Kindle. By removing the gatekeepers at traditional publishers, a lot of authors rushed to the service to achieve their dreams. Then authors began reporting success and even some "tricks" to get their books shown on the front page of Kindle or in emails. With that came a deluge of people flooding the service with poorly written, unedited, or otherwise disposable works. Many were paying people overseas to write books for pennies a word. All of it worked, for a time. To deal with this issue, Amazon allowed users to report issues with the books, issued refunds, and started to weigh things like review scores in how it ranked or displayed books. Those books and authors tanked. The expectations for quality went up and more authors had to turn to things like branding in order to be found or they returned to traditional publishers for help. So it is no surprise to me that using AI to produce 100 books in very little time does not work. I even tried to read one of those books, and I thought: Why would I read this over a Tom Clancy novel? There is no shortage of great books and art created by humans that buying or consuming AI content does not make sense. This is not to say that AI will not ever advance far enough to produce a book equivalent to Tom Clancy, but we are not there yet. What I do see are authors adopting AI to help them with writer's block and ideation. I think there is a balance here, where those with strong foundations in their art (color theory, characterization, plotting) can combine their human skills with AI to accelerate processes and produce more work faster, allowing them to spend more time with branding and marketing. While there is something lost when using AI as part of the process, I admit that as a writer and editor, I use ChatGPT to help me with outlines and research and I use Grammarly to help with the driest parts of editing. There are people looking to AI as a replacement for having to make an effort in learning challenging skills and risking failure. 99.9% of those people will fail and then will move on to the next "get rich quick" scheme.

This happened with the NFT bandwagon where a bunch of subpar "creatives" thought they could make big bucks by throwing out terrible art as NFTs. The market soon had a bunch of really really bad art and just flooded/flushed out or buried the actual good art. Now AI has become so prevalent that it is using its very own art/creations as reference to copy from and as a result its art is becoming watered down and in many cases much much worse.

This is the video I’ve been waiting for someone, anyone to make! Commodifying production does not create sustainable customers, it creates interchangeable producers. Your point about brand and relationship is THE crux of the matter. Thank you!

As an aspiring animator and writer, I thank you for this video. I have been stressing out over my career choices and hopes due to these rapid technological advances. I believe that as long as we use AI as a tool rather than a soulless replacement we’ll all be good.

Brilliant points. As I type this, I have literally just checked the website of the author who writes my favourite series to see if a release date is set for the latest book. I've been reading this series since 2017. This book will be the 14th (plus another 6 in a companion series, plus a host of short stories) and the first in the series was released back in 2006. I'm a member of several social media groups devoted to this series. Because we love it. The series has become a whole culture for us with discussion of characters, plots and memes. We love how a seemingly insignficant conversation in one book can develop into a completely unexpected plot twist a few books later. Most of all, we love how obvious it is that the author is having a complete blast of a time in writing this series and are writing these books because there is nothing more they would love to spend their time doing. That's the biggest selling point. Create because you enjoy creating, not because you think it's a quick and easy way to make some cash.

"Will the audience see you as someone trying to entertain them, or just trying to cash in?" That's a really good way to put it...

A powerful lesson for art business in general. It goes beyond AI "art" and asks the real question about how we should be building our brand and business. Thanks for this.

there's been too many times at convention where if I was on the fence about buying someone's art or merch, I get to talking to the artist. Then something about their passion or even plain ol' friendliness just pulls me right along to grab my money lol. AI, by its very definition, lack that humanity

I think there will appear a "No AI involved" movement where people will seek "hand-made" content.

Art is expression. AI has nothing to express.

So true, and since you cannot copyright, apparently, AI art, then you cannot even protect it's uniqueness.

I work selling my art at conventions as a side project (my day job is IT) because I love drawing and meeting new people. 1000% my best and favorite customers are other artists. They come up to my booth, we talk for a little bit about the art and how I make it, and when they find out everything I do is vector they are often blown away by what I am making with Illustrator. 9/10 times it ends up being a sale, but way more than that as you said in the video they are buying into the experience they had talking to me about what I am creating and how I am creating it. I have been saying this for a while but the art world is about to change. People aren't going to be buying art because they think the art is cool, they are going to be buying art because they want to support the artist. Your brand is going to be the most important thing moving forward, and just like you said that brand isn't going to be built on logos or marketing. It is going to be built on a connection to your audience.

It's kind of sad that when we have amazing tech like AI, people only use it for "get rich quick" scheme.

Yes, and no. I was a very popular (in fact, the MOST popular) collage artist in the period of 2014-2017. I didn't have to go to conventions or connect with anyone. People liked the art, and I was helped by the IG and Tumblr algorithms being chronological-based instead of recommendation-based (so anyone who was following me, would actually see my art). I didn't have to open up my life, or show images of my house, or what I ate that day, or where I traveled, in order to "connect" with my audience. I just posted art, and it worked just fine. Fast forward to 2020, and I decided to be a children's book-style illustrator. By that time, all these services had moved to recommendation systems and narrow AI for suggestions, instead of showing all posts of the people you follow. As much popular I was with collages, the least I was with my illustrations. Similar illustrations by others would get anywhere from 500 to 1500 likes, and I'd get 50. The system simply didn't find me engaging. So, I gave up, and I don't post anywhere anymore. But you have to ask yourself here: why do we have to open up our lives and become a brand, when we can just do art? The problem as I see it is the recommendation engines, and nothing else. I'm simply NOT interested in becoming a public person. But that doesn't mean I don't want to be a successful artist. Not to equate myself with him, but think about that: no one knows who Banksy is. He doesn't post about what he ate today. And yet, Banksy is Banksy because of his stunts, which are actually his art. But we don't know anything else about him. Why should we?

This is a much needed video. I'm glad to see AI bros are NOT going as well as they'd hoped. Thanks Brad!

I’ve said it a thousand times before. No one will pay $100+ for AI art when a dreamstudio sub is $10 per 1000 images

This is the reason I don’t buy products from people who use AI. I wanna support the skill and hard work they put into their passion. I say no matter how great the AI spits the prompt out, if you don’t have a story behind it or experienced the journey of creating something you call your own, then it’s not art.

THANK YOU FOR SAYING THIS. I've said this to many other artists on various forums. If all you're doing is typing prompts, then you're not an artist - you just know how to type - like millions of people all around the world. There's nothing unique in AI Art.

Excellent video and I am not even an artist! The people who use it are more interested in the overhead saving aspect to maximize their profit! I read an article about a man who made an AI generated children’s book! It’s just an insult!

That was fire. Standing ovation for you here in the studio. Thanks, Brad!

This is what a lot of artists afraid of AI are misunderstanding. Art isn't about art alone, but the brand and experience you have with the artist. Merely flooding the market with nice looking stuff won't grab anyone's attention A great example is the MCU. Once they produced tons more movies, their profits started to drop and people slowly lost interest

One thing I use Midjourney for is to more quickly come up with ideas for product design. It’s not close to being good enough for a final, presentable idea, but what it creates gives me new ideas I can build on. I think that’s one of the long term use scenarios for “AI” art. I put that in quotes because this stuff isn’t really AI, it’s not really intelligent, just automated decision trees. I also use it to make art mashups of different styles and artists and I’ve created some great stuff that way which I’ve been tempted to put on a tshirt or sticker, but I don’t for precisely the reason you have outlined here! They are great individually, but there is no common thread, no brand, no story. Each creation is an artistic dead-end.

Artificial intelligence is still the biggest problem in the history of writers and illustrators, at least those who are create for a living for publication and distribution, because I think fine art is still safe for the moment… AI artwork recently replaced hundreds of Chinese animators though they did keep one animator on as someone to fix any mistakes and that Artist is working for about $.10 on the dollar of what she used to… Additionally, Netflix made an entire animated show and they had Artificial intelligence create all of the backgrounds instead of paying over a million bucks… The vast majority of people who commissioned artists have no idea if the artist they have hired is real or a robot as long as they are happy with the results, and the problem with artists competing against robots, as the artist can only create work of a certain level of quality within a certain timeframe, such as a day or a week whereas robots can do a week or a months worth of detailed Work in seconds, so there really is no way to compete against such monstrous production… Commission sites are now infested with AI users POSING AS ARTISTS that are making money hand over fist - the consumer cannot tell the difference, though artists usually can tell the difference, though that is changing - many times even Artists cannot tell, and the robots improve every minute and every second of every day…

This video rocks! The explanation on what's branding is amazing!! Thank you!!! And totally agree on dumping tons of AI generated stuff vs actually looking to offer value to the costumer!

absolutely right the brand value is the key for making money, this is why cooperation pays 6-10 figures just for a brand rights , this is why Celebrity signed merch has value .

Thanks for sharing.... I think I was at the Merch by Amazon conference you talked about..... great times..... Do you still design t-shirts?

For those claiming you make thousands selling AI stuff, I have a proposal: Pay my first few months of monthly fees for AI sites and, as soon as I make money out of them, I'll pay you back with a interest rate of your choice. If you've got soooooo rich with that, 150/200 bucks must be pocket change for you...

Many who sell t-shirts fail because they don't have a style or identity that stands out, or are too generic. While some artists I like, I have bought their t-shirts, artbooks or subscribe to their patreon because I admire their artworks and feel some sort of bond with the artist maybe because of their art style. I think that's why a lot of them fail at selling t-shirts or merchandise. They don't have an audience that clicks with the brand.

Brad you hit me with another reality check. Several years ago I had to get rich fast through surveys, watching ads etc which I got from KZfaq but... it didn't work. It crashed, limitations held and it was a scam. That led me to a point of how getting rich overnight is a pipe dream it will never come true. I was one of those people who didn't want to do any effort, hard work or try to be patient so this video can make people realise that the only way to make money is trying to through Branding you said

Mr Brad! You nailed it! Yes! I knew this, I was seeing it but I could not put it into words! Thank you. Thank you also for the value you provide. Rocko

I thought about trying to illustrate my own coloring books using amazons printing service, before the whole ai thing exploded, now I'm not so sure. How can I possibly compete, not just with other artists, but the influx of Ai now? I don't have a brand, I wouldn't even have an idea for what that would be.

As a recent update to this topic, you also can’t claim copyright on AI generated works. So it is legally impossible to built a brand off AI.

As a Digital and practical abstract artist this whole AI trend is in way beneficial to me since I got my own way of making art that is impossible for an AI to replicate without copying patterns. AI is incapable of really create and reshape ideas of movement and balance in painting. I started painting 30 years ago, like you said it takes time to create a "brand", a singularity. I'm also using midjourney as I use photoshop, procreate, topaz and take pictures in order to give me ideas of different patterns & colors that I could use in my painting. We should always considering AI as a tool and not using it to generate random art forms.

Thank you so much for making this video as I really needed this for some of my new artist buddies need.

I have a couple friends who are the grind/hustle types who think AI is their get rich quick scam and the question that really gets under their skin is when I ask "So what would make someone want to buy YOUR AI generated product over another" and they don't have a good answer. They think people will just buy for the sake of buying and not because the product itself has an enticing novelty to attract buyers.

This video makes a lot of sense Brad. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and very very valid arguments against AI. If you don't see folks making a ton of money using AI, where do you see things going with the whole industry? Perhaps, another video discussing this?

I really appreciate this video, this concept held true for NFT stuff and everyone jumped on the train, but most of it was garbage that no one wanted except for people who had similar intentions-to get rich quick. People want the full experience, not a vapid and shallow product devoid of any humanness. No matter how good ai can get it can’t or won’t replace us because it doesn’t have the stories or emotions or experiences we do. Now when ai becomes sentient and can feel emotions I’ll be worried.

I only use AI for parts of my designs. My concepts are too complex for a prompt to ever get right in one picture. I also make complex clothing designs without any AI. You have to make stuff the average grandma can't prompt herself.

Somehow I don't feel AI is going to give me what I want. I believe only human artists themselves can decide how the final product is gonna look while AI simply approximates the final look.🤔

It's so easy to consume art, books, shows etc without even paying for them. I only pay for them to support the people and industries that make them. Why would I pay to support someone else getting an AI to make something, especially when if I wanted something made by an AI I could just get an AI to make it myself?

That thing about supporting an artist, it's totally true. I buy merch for games i don't play because i want to support those artists because i like _them_

Great video Brad. Seems so obvious when you put it this way, but you've really hit on the reason creatives have nothing to treat from AI. 🙂

Imagine that, something that takes 0 effort to make is worthless

Brad I appreciate your insight and your wisdom, I needed the reality check !Thank you!

i love this video. thank you. as an artist with a good size following on FB (and decent following on IG) i kept seeing ai artist with shops popping up.. and godawful stuff too. none of it sells, and it seems people have sort of stopped trying to sell ai stuff

Great video. I got sucked into the whole AI thing by watching a video on how to make money with it. In the end I earned $4.08 with like 6 image sales out of 53 uploaded and like 30 rejected and just decided to give up as the ROI wasn't worth it and with the low barrier to entry floods and floods of new people were entering the market daily doing exactly the same thing and my AI Art stopped selling. I haven't made a sale for like 2 months now........ I learned a valuable lesson from this which is the easier something is to do, the more competition you will face due to more people doing it.

It does not take two hours to dance Swan Lake - It takes a ballerina trained for twenty years to dance it in two hours.

Well said Brad. This is exactly why I am NOT concerned with AI in art. Humans are interested in other humans and their stories. Technology is a fleeting novelty that will always be a byproduct of the time the work is made in. Authentic, sincere work will usually transcend its technological architecture, while product for products sake will eventually collapse under the weight of it.

Really interesting perspective. Brand is something that all artists struggle with, though. And I don't see how it's all that different for people who use ai as tools for making art. When someone buys something, they're buying it because of you, as the person making it. Some people think about tooling, but the average consumer doesn't really get it, nor should they.

Brilliant points. Thank you for sharing!

I got my AI mentor that help me to correct texts I already have made and how to build my brand as a digital artist / illustrator. It helps me a lot to understand how things work, and make a time plan for how I can get started and what to do next. Brad thank so much you inspire me a lot

Absolutely fantastic message that needed to be said! WHOO HOO! I've been swamped with the AI -> Dropship videos as well, and I have to say... it's tempting. But I won't follow through with it. Great video, Brad - thank you!

Hi Brad From the experience of an Art Director at an Advertising Modeling Agency. I completely agree with you. Your conclusions and knowledge are 100% truthful. We know each other This is a new page. You studied and advised me a lot, for which I am very grateful to you. for your time and studying information. Haomi 6 and pen. I bought this and a printer. I'm starting everything again. the old phone was broken, everything was there passwords I made everything again, all the sites from scratch))) ❤

If you want to use AI to make stuff, go ahead. I have no objection. But then let only AI-generated money be used to pay you.

Awesome to hear to an professional artists opinion this matter! Are you gonna be reviewing the new Fire Max 11 tablet with pen support. Wondering if it can dethrone the S6 lite as the budget android drawing tablet king.

Hey Brad I was hoping you could answer my question regarding which one I should get? I was hoping you could make a video about the huion Kamvas Studio 16 vs the newest iPad Pro because they both seem to be really good, but not sure which one( they are about the same amount ) // I'm kinda scared to invest 😭 😱

But can AI tattoo you? No, no it can’t.

Can you review Xiaomi pad 6 and is there any way to simulate Adobe fresco in Android.

This is a beautiful video! Helpful, informative and insightful! Kudos!

I subscribed to a site where you get full commercial use of everything on and 9 times out of 10 when i download something i can tell it is AI because its not good enough for use. I complained and they finally made AI generated its own category so you can skip and not waste time

Wanted to see someone dunk on some goofy ai bros, instead got some good business insight. Thanks for that, really helpful.

Ai has been so discouraging to me. But this shedding light on it makes me a bit happier. I agree. I think art is art. (Insert Mr. incredible here) And Ai just farting stuff like this out is well, like a fart. It explodes and then fizzles out, and it smells really bad.

Great vid. Would be nice if you can prevent your mic picking up the constant table-bumping sound or whatever that low frequency noise is.

You are absolutely correct in terms of the need for perceived value by the consumer. However there are some quite serious issues with the rest of your argument. Do you think perceived value is exclusive to humans and always will be? Text generators have been evolving for the last 40 years, but they're still only at the start of their development. What they can do today will look like a malformed toy tomorrow given how much money, time and effort are being pumped into them by some of the biggest brands in tech. Similar for generative art. Why do you think these companies are investing so many resources into these products? Do you think they'd enter into this weird AI arms races if they weren't all certain there are serious return on investment up for grabs? What does perceived value mean when AI can write as well as today's popular authors? When it can create illustrations and animations as well as a professional team can today? These generators aren't doing this on their own, there's a human hand guiding them, curating the results. The real question will be surrounding copyright, and credit. Is a text generator really that different to a ghost writer? Consumers like the right blend between what they know and novelty, that can be written as an algorithm so generators will eventually be able to produce it. "AI" generators are just tools, just like drawing tablets are. Today you review drawing tablets but as the industry moves on tomorrow you might just be reviewing generative model services. A few at first, just as a novelty until before you know it there you are. It's worth noting that a flooded market, is a flooded market. As expectation of quality reduces, consumer tolerance for risk reduces too. That pushes consumers back to established brands where they know what they're getting. That also means the money dries up for new entries to the market where they don't have an established publisher behind them to push and advertise the work. A good children's book with generated illustrations is still going to sell. People don't distinguish between who did the illustrations, particularly if a person slaps their name on the work. Well curated generated illustrations will only add to the perceived value. Whether you like it or not generative models are here to stay. They are tools that are going to completely change the creative industry over the coming years. What a corporate studio currently needs a whole team of writers or artists for, will eventually turn into just a task for the director or their assistant to do via these generative tools. It won't happen literally tomorrow but it will happen and anyone working in the creative industry needs to be prepared for it. The big question will be, who will own the copyright of generated works. Will royalties need to be paid, and how much cheaper will they be than hiring a team of workers. That'll dictate speed of adoption.

It's just about marketing, I now someone that can produce $2000 a month with AI, compared me that already draw for ±15 years that only can get $200-400 a month, that is really big difference, since it's much less effort.

This man right here is spittin' facts!

I think one of the most appealing things towards AI art and content is the immediate leverage and low barrier to entry people are granted with it. The interaction with the technology is enticing due to the fact that skills necessary prior to creating such works are now very less likely needed.

AI art isn’t art, digital is

I gotta say though... it has been fun watching the video titles on this site fill up with "I did a thing with AI and you can make monies too" has been funny and concerning. Concerning because, as you pointed out, its indicative of how many people are going to start pumping out junk and oversaturate their area they are about to infect with yet even more AI content.

society will always separate themselves between the practitioner vs the faker. it's always been that way, always natural. luckily being an artist is hard, and requires serious dedication. so it's extremely easy to spot any faker. even early intermediate lvl artist / late beginner can already tell which one real vs fake.

Video gave me so much hope. I've beem thinking the same thing, too. Thanks for this.

I sell access to my personal blog where I sometimes explain how I do my pictures and market it as such... but most people tell me they are to lazy to do it themselves and are just subbed to get my images. When you go into multiple paragraphs of prompts, controlnet, inpainting and so on you are already in the range of several hours and people don't care about spending that much time to get good pictures. So like 90% are subbed to download a few images a day and nothing more - I still continue writing my howtos, but it feels kinda pointless.

I believe ai stuff should always be announced on every platform it's published on so that people can see how the art was made, and that it should not be charged at the same price as human made art. Like, no matter how detailed, it's basically worthless. Though truth be told, ai art should not be sold at all considering it's made from other artists' works without consent.

Great video Brad. I mean all your videos are great. This one was especially great.

Why?: Oversaturation of products, the same way hundreds of Mobile and MMOrpg games can't sustain themselves and just ends their services in a few months. The A.i gold rush is effective a few months before. but now that there is even a Ai art generation is mainstream and very accessible, this just made their grift become slowly obsolete, like "why should i pay your ai art if i can make ai art myself"

Thanks, I remember i shared your cartoons in my blog as a inspiration. Never know yuo ahve a youtube channel.

This video is great and something I haven’t heard before. Thank you!

Well you need input to get output. So if you want to be rich or famous, you need to puy your time, energy and money. Simple but people always go shortcuts.

Thanks for making this Brad. This was pretty obvious for me. You can't have thousands of people auto-generating things with AI to try and sell. All it does is flood the market with crap. Now can AI assist you in making money? It sure can but the keyword is "assist". You still need to put in the work. For example, art can only be copyrighted if you as an artist go back and make custom changes with industry-standard tools such as Adobe Photoshop. This is not my opinion but came straight from the U.S. Copyright Office. I know everyone wants to make a quick buck but most times, it just isn't realistic.

Very interesting take. Thanks for sharing this video

Sir, can you please review the Xiaomi Pad 6 with it's 2nd gen stylus. One more thing that can we use super display on it to use it as a cintiq. I'm really looking forward to buying that thing with my scholarship money but I am not sure that it would be a good tablet. I mainly draw for product design and sometimes do art too. Thank you so much for your videos sir, those really helped me get into the design school that I really wanted to. I thought I could not clear the entrance exam because my drawing was really bad. You're videos really helped me. Thank you so much. I'm really looking forward for your response.

Please review Xiaomi Pad 6 with its 2nd gen stylus. Please Please Please

im not an artist however I was interested in digital art a long time ago. Its truly fascinating seeing how A.I is having an effect on artist and ultimately what this means for the future of people and A.I. Your video was interesting, i just wonder how relative those ideas will be in the future tho. I can see how building a brand is more important but ultimately companies will do whatever it takes to cut cost and make a profit. I could see in the future that company will cut out the middle man i.e sellers and actual artist and just use A.I art themselves in some case. I fear this is just the beginning, im curious and afraid at the same time.

You articulated this very well, Brad. AI is an opportunity and that opportunity does not include AI ;-)

as an artist i never understood why other artist are so threatened by these tools if anything it just made human artist more valuable

Great content! I've been working with AI for over 6 months and have invested a significant amount of money into it. While it does work, it's certainly not magic. It requires a lot of time and effort, and sometimes the rewards aren't what you'd expect. Thanks for sharing!

You're so right about it 👍🏻.

The issue of what one uses AI technology for, its limitations, is a separate issue from whether anyone actually "needs" art in any form, regardless of how it is made.

Honestly im so glad that this is being said and its logical and Ai "artist" won't steal real artist jobs 😆

Brad Thank you for your time. And this. I completely agree with that. Having studied half the information. The market is crowded with AI pictures and T-shirts will not give good results.

As someone who dedicated their life to art and design, Ai art has been really really discouraging. I got a design degree as a first in my family college graduate, against people telling me it wasn’t a smart choice to get an arts degree as someone in my financial situation. I am really trying to remind myself why I wanted to get into art in the first place. To express myself and connect with other people. It was never about making money. I only ever wanted to make enough money to keep allowing me to do what I love. In everything I create, I want to do it with love. Thank you for this video. ❤

Thank you for being the lone voice speaking into the confusion.🥰 Everyone is trying to jump in on a craze thinking it's a shortcut to getting rich quick. The way to "success" hasn't changed, you really need to put in the work, pure and simple. Using ChatGPT or Midjourney is not putting in the "work." The old-fashioned way is still the surest path to success. Stop looking for shortcuts.

good video Brad! I agree

the message at 5:00 hits really well.

The issue isnt that you cant build a brand. That mode of monetization is obviously not gonna work with ai. Its that you can take advantage of trends and niches on scale. U can make so much stuff that even if it barely sells it will still net u a decent profit.

Thanks for the great video! You're awesome!

Thank you for telling the truth. I might also add that there is more money being made teaching how to be an artist than there will ever be a market for art. Collectible art sales total only a few billion a year, yet YT tutorials are creating a surplus of millions of would-be artists and I think even human-created art has been greatly devalued as a result of this.

Please,Review Xiaomi Pad 6.

Very smart stuff. Enjoyed it. No Soul - No Sell.

6:20. Buying into an artist’s story. Heard that from potter who does art shows that considers himself a craftsman without a story. Still claims engaging the public is what sells more than the objects.