With the rise of artificial intelligence and changes aplenty in Google search, it’s becoming increasingly important for publishers and content creators to provide something no one (or no robot) can; your opinion, your expertise, your creativity, your story.
This is true regardless of the medium you publish on.
But whilst AI will certainly disrupt the world of video (and it has already started to get some traction with the likes of AI Seinfeld), it’s clear that video is a much harder space for generative AI to compete in compared to text.
With text-based content, AI can generate and provide responses in seconds. Users that are looking for an answer can search, learn and leave without ever needing to land on third party websites, further increasing the difficulty of survival if you’re a publishing business* that relies on views to Q&A or ‘how-to’ content.
*Like my own — more on that shortly.
When seeking out a video, viewers are usually not expecting a 5-second answer. The audience is typically looking for content that teaches, demonstrates and entertains. It’s not so easy for AI to whip that user experience up — or steal it from other sources — and even if it could, it seems financially unfeasible for any AI company to be able to fund it any time soon.
Text is extremely lightweight to store and manage from a data perspective compared to video, yet ChatGPT costs an estimated $0.36 per question answered — over $700,000 per day — in computing power for text-based answers.
As a quick and dirty, totally non-scientific comparison, I grabbed an 8-minute YouTube video that I’d created in the past and looked at the numbers. The plain text version of the script is 10kb in file size. The video file, which does not have fancy edits and is only 1080p in a world where 4K is quickly becoming the norm, is 578mb. That’s 57,800 times bigger than the plain text file of the same piece of content.
With the help of napkin math, I’m officially declaring that an 8-minute, 100% AI-generated video costs $20,808 (57,800 * $0.36) in computing power. No, I’m not serious.
Amongst the rubble of a business that has come crashing down to a painful new reality, YouTube is the light at the end of the tunnel for me.
My publishing business in the gaming industry has been struggling in 2023 due to a variety of factors; Google updates, AI, and the recession. Whilst the recession will pass, the threat of AI and Google updates (and updates that will continue to incorporate a greater use of AI and reduce clicks to publishers) will not.
To succeed in any business you must be able to move with the times. Adapt or die.
My AI strategy is to move as far away from what AI can compete with as I can — whilst harnessing some of its power to improve processes.
We have multiple early stage YouTube channels that have barely scratched the surface of what is possible on the platform. They generate revenue, people care about our content, brands want to work with us, and I know we can 10x-50x in size over the coming years if we keep creating and improving.
Video will become my core focus going forward, building audiences that care about what we have to say rather than one that finds the answer to their question and leaves to never return.
I’ll be working to grow our own channels, I want to help more people grow their channels with Creator Kingdom, and I want to consult with more medium-sized creators (5,000 to 100,000 subscribers) and brands that are serious about growing on YouTube.
Two months ago, I uploaded a video on a channel with just 900 subscribers and reached 495,000 views, generating nearly $2,000 in ad revenue, despite the channel not being monetized at the time of upload.
Now it’s time to repeat that success multiple times over whilst helping other people to do the same.