'Five years from now, AI-powered content creation will be widespread and commonplace'

Devdatta Potnis, CEO, Animeta, speaks about his role at the company, the company's value proposition and his expectations for 2023 for the content creator ecosystem

You have 15 years of experience across different areas within the media content business, spanning production, marketing and financing original content. What will you bring to the table at Animeta?

Animeta is a forward-thinking organisation in a truly democratised creator economy, and I am really excited to be its chief architect. With my experience in the content and media space, I intend to bring the studio model into the creator economy space where we will be investing in the right creators and creating brands out of them. We will bring about multi-platform monetisation, increase their community in regional and international markets, maximise their brand campaigns and empower them for social commerce – all through our AI-powered creator tech platform. It is always great to challenge oneself and I am looking forward to building this along with our spectacular team.

Before Animeta, you were the Chief Growth Officer at Cosmos-Maya. What made you make the switch? Where do you see AI-applied services five years down the line?

I have spent 15 years of my professional career in the media and entertainment industry where scaling businesses has been my forte. The fascination for the digital medium started with Cosmos-Maya and I witnessed its power. With the creator ecosystem exploding globally as well as in India, I felt it was the right time to join Anish in building Animeta. Even evolved markets like the US have a long way to go as far as the creator economy is concerned. India is at that right stage of growth where the space is growing and newer opportunities are opening up. Yet there are a few critical need gaps which Animeta will bridge. I am very optimistic on what the future holds for us.

I feel five years from now, AI-powered content creation will be widespread and commonplace. AI and machine learning will be used to automate many of the mundane, time-consuming tasks associated with content creation. AI-driven content generation, natural language processing and sentiment analysis will help create personalised content for various audiences, and AI-based text editing and optimisation tools will help optimise content for search engine rankings. Additionally, AI-powered tools will help automate content production, from finding relevant topics and research to creating structured content.

What is Animeta’s value proposition? How is Animeta’s tech platform a game-changer?

Animeta is a Creator Tech company focussed on creating and nurturing digital creators by helping them grow their communities and maximise their earnings across multiple social media platforms and customised brand solutions through the proprietary Animeta AI-based Self-Service Creator Tech platform. The company offers Financial Investment, Data Analytics and Business Intelligence, Content Strategy and Creative Supervision, Brand, PR and Social Media Expertise in addition to data-driven, result-oriented and authentic brand campaigns to content creators. In spite of the strong growth, the industry needs a few changes. Animeta aims to address all of these need gaps through its AI-powered creator tech platform.

What ails the content creators today and how does Animeta intend to plug this gap?

Digital creators today face multiple challenges, one of the biggest ones being that a vast majority of creators are unable to monetise their content. Some of the other challenges include lack of structured banking and financial assistance, no proper creative and production support, no business intelligence to grow scientifically; which means the market stays unorganised and does not produce many professional creators. 

Moreover, for a multilingual country like India, language is a barrier to growth. This is where Animeta comes in. It offers localisation. Lack of infrastructure is another challenge that Animeta addresses through the development of the entire value chain and overall 360-degree support, monetisation and brand building. And then there are the usual monetisation, copyright and compliance, which are typical business challenges that become even more pronounced for the creator economy as many of the creators come from a place of passion. Animeta is that business partner for creators who will handle all of these aspects of their business so that they can concentrate on creating content while Animeta takes care of everything else. 

Also, there are several tools at the creators’ disposal but lack of knowledge and other complications associated with the entrepreneurial aspect of being a creator; render most of these technology tools redundant as they add to the creators’ operational woes. None of these, however, address the main issue of creative bankruptcy/burn out because there is no one providing a content strategy, which is key.

Expectations for 2023 for the content creator ecosystem?

The market for creating digital content is continuously changing and in 2023, we can anticipate a number of changes that will influence the sector. The rise of Gen Z as a major force in content consumption is one of the most important developments. This "born-on-mobile" generation loves to use social media sites like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to access material. For many years to come, this trend is expected to have a significant impact on how people consume and view content.

The growing emphasis on user-generated content and the democratisation of content generation are two further trends that we may anticipate. We may anticipate a rise in the number of user-generated content since social media platforms enable everyone to develop and share their work.

In addition to user-generated content, we can also expect to see a rise in demand for niche content. Genres like travel, food and cooking, eating challenges, relaxing art, DIY, animals and pet care, gaming, people and vlogs are becoming increasingly popular, and content creators are focussing on producing more targeted and specific content. As audiences become more discerning and selective about the content they consume, creators will need to cater to their specific interests to remain relevant.