The Internet Creator’s Guide to the Future

TL;DR: Today we’re releasing a new episode of our podcast AI & I. I go in depth with Steph Smith, a16z Podcast host and internet creator. We dive into how AI is reshaping the world that internet creators live in. Watch on X or YouTube, or listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

Steph Smith is the ultimate internet explorer. 

I spent an hour talking to her about the future of creating on the internet in the age of AI. We had a wide-ranging discussion about:

• How AI changes what humans perceive as valuable in art and creativity
• The type of AI tools that are poised for success  
• How AI narrows the gap between ideas and execution 

Steph Smith is the host of the a16z Podcast, and the prolific internet creator behind Internet Pipes, a toolkit to surface useful insights on the internet; Doing Content Right, a book about building a successful blog; and many other interesting projects. She is also the first-ever repeat guest on AI & I, and I was thrilled to have her back on the show.

As we talk, we try out four underrated AI products, go through a list of Steph’s favorite niche internet creators, and follow her creative process in Midjourney in granular detail.

This is a must-watch if you make things on the internet and are interested in how AI is changing what it means to be a creator—and how creator businesses work. Here’s a taste:

• The unexplored creative frontiers of AI. Steph is intrigued by how we answer the question of “what can be newly created with AI that doesn't exist today?” She says that the “make it more” trend—where people prompted AI to progressively amplify a visual trend, creating a series of iterations with each one more over-the-top than the last—is an “example of art that could not have been created without AI.” 
• The perks of being authentic in the AI age. On the other end of the spectrum, Steph is interested in the art that we enjoy, in large part, because of the personality of the human being that has created it, citing niche creators with sizeable followings as examples, including a 2.6 million-strong Instagram account that depicts the life of knitted frog figurines. “[W]hat benefits from a human doing it in terms of the reception from another human?” she wonders.
• Find what fuels your brain. While articulating why she is interested in quirky creators, Steph compares her brain to an LLM, aiming to train it on “better data” by exposing herself to things that “surprise” her, like creators with unexpectedly large followings for their niche passions. “I'm especially paying attention when I see creations that surprise me in terms of how many people like them,” she explains, believing that this gives her “signal” of valuable insights.