64% of Six-Figure Creators Feel Heavy Pressure to Use AI

Six-figure creators and music artists in the US are more than three times as likely to feel heavy pressure to use AI as their lowest-earning peers, a new survey found. Some 64% of the highest earners described that pressure as "large" or "very large," versus 19% of the lowest earners.

The survey, shared exclusively with Business Insider, comes from Sapio Research, which polled 2,000 professional content creators and music artists in the US from March to April. It was commissioned by Epidemic Sound, a music and sound platform based in Sweden.

Pressure to adopt AI rose steadily with income level across the sample. Adoption followed the same pattern.

Who is actually using AI?

The numbers track income closely:

• 44% of creators earning $50,000 to $100,000 said they used fully AI-generated music or content in their work.
• 45% of those earning over $100,000 said the same.
• Only 23% of those making under $5,000 reported using fully AI-generated material.

Gracie Schram, global head of creator partnerships and strategy at Epidemic Sound, said higher-earning creators face bigger output and distribution expectations, tend to be early adopters, and have access to more tools.

"They're distributing multiple videos every day, on YouTube, Snapchat, Spotify," Schram said. "It comes with this distribution predicament. They're getting invited to do more stuff on platforms, which leads to more pressure to make more stuff. With these big creators, it's a huge amount of pressure to stay relevant."

What's the backlash risk?

AI presents competing challenges for creators. The technology can save time and boost creativity, but creators draw value from audience trust — and the US public remains uneasy about AI. Some creators also fear reputational damage if platforms label their work as AI-generated.

The risk varies by creator, said Victoria Bachan, CEO of talent management agency Hyphen. Those who use AI to pump out high volumes of content, or deploy it in ways followers see as inauthentic, face the greatest danger of backlash.

"It comes down to, 'What is your social contract with the audience you serve?'" Bachan said. "You aren't going to have AI make a recipe. We do have creators who have done AI deals, but it aligns with their content like tech, finance education."

How do creators use it without losing trust?

Many keep AI behind the scenes. Schram said the creators she works with often use AI to speed up workflow, including editing and A/B concept testing — for example, building storyboards that never appear in the final creative product.

Henrik Olsson, a Stockholm-based music artist who creates for Epidemic Sound, said that as an artist making a "comfortable living," he depends on AI for scripting and editing to help produce his social media content.

The audience side of the equation showed up clearly in the survey. Seventy-seven percent of all US creators said human-made content was becoming a premium offering for audiences in the era of AI, and 78% said clear AI disclosure was essential to maintaining trust.

"They still want human creativity to be at the center," Schram said.

Olsson predicted the rise of AI would push artists to become more creative rather than replace their art. "We have to be one step ahead," he said.

The findings suggest the creator economy is splitting: top earners scale output with AI while marketing its absence, and disclosure practices are becoming a trust currency of their own.