This week I wish to dive into an business that’s near my coronary heart; leisure. For the those who don’t know. I began my profession in music, first by organizing festivals and occasions to later administration of artist. After that I dabbled into sports activities and gaming too. The artwork of leisure at all times has my curiosity and a focus.
The business has modified quite a bit already. The superstars of at the moment are very totally different from after I grew up. The web modified every part as we all know. Streamers are todays world superstars and their energy is actual. Once more proven, most just lately, by the The Sidemen Charity Soccer Match.
The near-annual occasion began in 2016 as method for UK creator tremendous group the Sidemen (aka KSI, Miniminter, Zerkaa, TBJZL, Vikkstar123, Behzinga, and Wroetoshaw) to play some aggressive soccer in entrance of a stay viewers of tremendous followers with the proceeds going to charity.
By 2025 the occasion has became a tentpole within the creator area with heavyweight individuals from throughout the globe. Right here’s the way it’s scaled:
• 2016: 15,000 in attendance // £110,000 raised• 2017: 27,000 in attendance // £210,000 raised• 2018: 14,000 in attendance // £65,000 raised• 2022: 27,000 in attendance // £1 million raised• 2023: 67,000 in attendance // £2.4 million raised• 2025: 90,000 in attendance // £4.7 million raised
The 2025 occasion drew a peak concurrent viewership of two.75 million with a median of 1.7 million concurrent viewers. They offered 90K tickets bodily attendee tickets and gathered 17 million publish occasion views in solely 5 days. Nearly all world Youtube/Web stars joined, together with Ishowspeed, Kai Cenat, Mr Beast, Logan Paul and extra.
The outcomes are mind-blowing, to not point out the quite a few movies on Instagram and TikTok that went fully viral, racking in a whole lot of hundreds of thousands of views.
This raises a query, what comes after world Youtube superstars? My solutions could be: digital AI agent superstars. I feel we are going to see, not less than one, world famous person that’s fully AI pushed, autonomous, each digital and bodily embodied. Promoting out venues and racking billions of views on-line.
Let’s take a look at the other ways this could come about.
Social Media: We now have already seen what impact AI can have on social media, from two totally different sides. First off, the AI Brokers that went fully loopy on X (Twitter) the previous few months. I’ve talked about them a number of instances with aixbt turning into probably the most profitable one, at the moment sitting at 498.000 followers. Its focus is sharing hyper related business data at unbelievable velocity.
In the meanwhile most these brokers are textual content primarily based, it’s an LLM mixed with proprietary (and additional) knowledge with a view to service a sure use case. However let’s take into consideration that somewhat additional. It’s, in my humble opinion, a matter of time earlier than we see these characters come to stay with having far more capabilities by way of content material creation. Video technology, picture technology, stay streaming, music, coding, and extra. The one factor that’s then lacking is a (pre) outlined character. If I used to be a personality designer by craft, I knew what I’d do rightttt now! That’s; writing an unbelievable character, a narrative line, a historical past, all collectively creating the good character I might think about, all to make use of that to ultimately practice an AI mannequin that I can then flip into an agent.
Finally you should have the power to actually construct such an agent and set it free on all social platforms the place it will possibly have interaction with followers and, most significantly, followers can have interaction with the character. 24/7, it received’t sleep. An fascinating query that simply popped in my thoughts is about possession and/or income streams. What in case your character turns into a star and Pixar needs to show it right into a film? (I imply, why couldn’t this occur?):
Does Pixar go and message the character and make a take care of it in some way.Does it go to its creator (if identified).
The primary choice could be potential if there’s a crypto pockets hooked up to the AI character, one thing now we have already seen occur too. (As a reminder: AI Agent Luna paid one other agent 1 USD to generate a picture, the AI Agent gave its pockets tackle and generated the picture after it received paid — for the total story verify version 6 right here).
The opposite instance of the place we’re heading is with the success of among the digital influencers we all know. I’m speaking about characters like Lil Miquela, Lu of Magalu, Shudu and plenty of others. They’ve gathered hundreds of thousands of followers throughout Instagram, TikTok and Youtube. Which means there’s clearly a marketplace for following non-human characters on social media. When this turned a factor a number of years in the past and folks discovered it bizarre, I instantly had to consider the truth that now we have been “following” non-human characters ceaselessly already. Once I grew up, I liked Winnie The Pooh and Donald Duck taught me my first English. So, what’s the distinction now that they’ve Instagram accounts? The nice factor to remember although, with the three above talked about digital influencers, is that they’re developed, created and thoroughly maintained by folks. Very totally different from the AI Agent characters I discussed earlier.
Including to those digital influencers, I want to additionally briefly point out gaming characters who’ve turn into huge manufacturers in their very own rights. This goes way back to Mario and Luigi and has not stopped since. With the ever rising affect of gaming that is additionally one thing that may proceed.
The long run? It makes whole sense to me that the above two tendencies will merge and that may solely skyrocket their development, affect and influence.
As a result of what if anybody can construct a longterm “relationship” with their favourite character? What when you can WhatsApp message Lil Miquela to ask her for vogue recommendation or assist you to decide an image to publish? And she will be able to have this dialog with hundreds of thousands of individuals on the identical time. (Sure, feels quite a bit just like the film Her — AGAIN).
Bodily: however let’s transcend the digital realm and focus on how these digital AI characters might turn into bodily as nicely. The primary apparent one is in fact robotics. It’s as “straightforward” as including the AI mannequin behind the character to a completely practical AI pushed robotic, to then make it sound just like the character. Kinda loopy, however let’s not go there but haha!
I heard one other nice thought although as somebody is creating a videogame with AI pushed NPC’s (non-playing-characters). As a result of these NPC’s are actually AI pushed they will have in-depth conversations about principally something and never solely that, whenever you shut your sport and are available again a number of days later, it is aware of precisely what you guys mentioned final time. Very totally different from the NPC’s now that you would be able to solely say a number of, pre-scripted, issues to with a view to then get a scripted reply in return. That is going to be the usual for gaming, 100%. However this isn’t why I needed to say this, the cool factor is is that this firm is making an attempt to attach the digital NPC to a bodily toy. This might unlock that you’ve a dialog together with your fav NPC within the digital world and may proceed the dialog offline in a bodily type, with the toy. I get that that is most likely centered on children, however it’s fairly superior to consider what sort of storytelling prospects this unlocks.
I imply let’s be sincere, who didn’t need their Furby, Tamagotchi, or Pokemon to be truly “alive” once we had been children? (sure I needed to be a Pokemon coach soooo dangerous 🤣 )
Tamagotchi’s have developed too! Subsequent, AI pushed Tamagotchi’s?
The final apparent one is the rise of AR/VR/MR glasses and headsets, but in addition hologram know-how. We have already got nice teases of what’s to come back for each. First off, hologram tech. We already had a small preview of Tupac on Coachella, however do you know ABBA has been doing a bunch of “hologram reveals” in London for some time now? What began in 2022 with only a few dedicated reveals has became a whole lot of reveals, now already deliberate out all the way in which to October 2025. They offered 3 million tickets (till December 2024) and it contributed a whopping 1.4 Billion Kilos to the UK economic system. We gifted the present/journey to my Mother, who went with my brother. They each liked it and had been amazed by the tech. It’s secure to say this has been a large success.
Now quick ahead the event of this know-how 5 years and the chances are infinite. Why wouldn’t we go to a present by an unbelievable AI Agent character who generates superior music? It does turn into a giant query who owns what, who organizes what and so forth, very unusual hahah! For music, there will certainly be a protracted and harsh interval of push again towards AI generated music and “AI artists”. The market isn’t mistaken although so let’s see if an artist can truly catch storm and generate a success. I actually consider that it’s solely a matter of time.
One other nice instance is the massively profitable band Gorillaz, who’ve at all times had digital characters. On the finish of 2022 they took issues to a brand new stage by doing an augmented actuality present at Time Sq. in New York, put along with Google to point out off Geospatial know-how. Which means, the reveals was solely seen at a sure time, on a sure spot (Time Sq.).
Identical as hologram. Quick-forward 5 years and who is aware of you possibly can most likely purchase at dwelling performances of your favourite AI characters that look extremely actual. Nice leisure!
For manufacturers it’s fairly apparent to me that, similar to you now make model offers with influencers, you’ll shut influencer offers with AI Agent characters sooner or later. Possibly straight with the AI itself or its creator, however your model shall be represented by digital characters ultimately. Manufacturers will even, most likely, launch their very own model characters. I ponder who the primary one shall be to fully set the AI “free” as a substitute of controlling each content material the character revealed. An effective way for disruptors to vary the sport ceaselessly when you ask me!
All off the above tendencies and observations lead me to consider that having an AI Agent Digital Celebrity is a really secure wager to make. It’s also possible to clearly inform by studying (and for me when writing) it that there shall be loads of questions on how this may precisely occur however I additionally consider that individuals will at all times discover a solution to determine issues out. Possibly the largest query of all of them, will its creator have a “on-off” button? 😅
Bizarre, thrilling, all of it on the identical time however once more, as I remind myself and also you all typically, it’s about opening our minds to what shall be potential and see how we are able to circulate with it and/or put it to use to our personal profit.
