How Edelman Is Helping Marketers Source and Work With AI Creators

In the modern world of communications, there has been a decline in authority and trust in companies stemming from the rapid rise of innovation. That’s according to Edelman’s Trust Barometer last year when there was a plethora of political claims being made due to various elections, including in the US and UK. Concerns were raised within the report that politics has too much influence on science and technology, not least when it comes to the growing influence of artificial intelligence on society.

In response, the global communications firm has sought to research and produce a trustworthy list of 50 creators covering the evolution of AI featuring creators across the US, EMEA, Canada, UK, UAE, LATAM and APAC.

The ‘AI Creators You Need To Know’ list includes experts such as Bernard Marr, Azeem Azhar, Alex Banks, Dinis Guarda, Sally Eaves and Sebastien Jefferies, selected from across academia, professional sectors and the creative community. Rigorously vetted by Edelman’s Creator Marketing Team, they have each been assessed based on their credibility, alignment with brand values, engagement, reach, and authority in AI.  

“The past year has been a pivotal year for AI-driven innovation across industries. As we look ahead to 2025, so many brands will be coming to market with new, transformed narratives, focused on AI and innovation,” explains Justin Westcott, global technology chair at Edelman.

By spotlighting a list of AI creators that marketers can trust to partner with, Edelman offers a resource that supports brands which aim to evolve their innovation narrative over the coming months.

Discussing the issues marketers experience when it comes to brand safety within the technology space is Fiona Hughes, Edelman’s head of Creator Marketing for EMEA.

Creative Salon: What are the dangers that brands and marketers face when it comes to AI-produced content and working with AI influencers?

Fiona Hughes: Without meaning to scare marketers off, it's pretty extensive. We would say that the same would apply to any topic, before you start looking at the creators you want to partner with, you have to be really clear on your story. What is it you want to communicate? What are your guardrails, your brand guidelines? The first thing that you should do is work as a marketing team with other people internally, whether that is your Issues and Crisis team or your corporate partners, to understand your AI playbook. Get that really clear first and know what your comfort levels are as well as the industry standards. Then there is the really obvious stuff about being very clear around disclosures and transparency, about when you as a brand and creator that you've partnered with has used AI, because we would always say that it's great for it to be used as long as we're being transparent about how-and-why it's being used.

It is a multi-step process, even before you get to the Creator. Ask yourself about your brand guardrails around content, making sure of that with marketers and staff working on clear approaches and standards. Be transparent when collaborating with experts like the ones on this list to ensure that you are staying ahead of the curve and staying on top of developments and ensuring that you’re working with AI iteratively to build on something rather than as the only thing. It needs to be enhancing rather than the core output.

CS: What challenges do marketers face when identifying creators to work with and what issues does this list solve?

Hughes: One of the things that's definitely a USP for anyone is the brand safety piece. As with any topic, there are loads of people chatting about hot topics. The benefit of starting here is that you know these people are brand-safe. Their content is not inflammatory, it's not overtly political, religious hate speech, all of the things you want to avoid. They have genuine academic credentials and professional credentials behind them.

What’s also really important is making sure that this is valuable. Are these people driving the debate? Do they have interesting things to say? Are they genuine thought leaders? Sometimes it's great to have an amplifier, but we would say these are thought leaders, rather than amplifiers and often the ones who will start and then lead conversations. So, when we were doing our vetting, we not only looked at their content, but we also looked at who follows them and who they follow, to start looking at their circles of influence and how influential they are within the space and more broadly.

CS: You must be hearing a lot from marketers around the issues that they have in this space and brand trust. Is it a growing concern to them?

Hughes: Following 2024, we're seeing more brands talking about AI to consumers, some that have decades of background and some that are new. So, creators present a valuable communications and marketing channel for those brands. That's what we are hearing from brands and why we made the list.

It has tapped the interest and concern of clients around this topic. We host a webinar series every month where we educate on broader topics, and it's incredibly well attended by marketers and clients. There's so much hunger for information around it. I think that's where Edelman is uniquely placed, because of our background is in trust, risk, reputation and being able to guide on a topic. You could go and chat with any creator agency or AI creator but there are still conversations that need to be had around the litigation piece and copyrights and ownerships. Obviously, we've got more of an edge on that than a lot of competitors, so that is an added value that we can provide.

CS: What surprised you and the team while curating this list?

Hughes: A lot of marketers that I chat with know that they have to get their heads around this. They understand the benefits, but it's maybe a little bit terrifying. I was somewhat surprised by the size and scale of the creators that we found working in a more broad tech creator space, the more academic creator who was talking about developments, issues and topics around ethics and so on. Actually, the size and scale of their following, and not just the number of followers but the number of engagements and interactions, it was a proof of; okay, this is real. This is not just a marketing thing around AI. No, the size and scale of interest in it blew my mind. And when we talk about the hierarchy of influencer; the Nanos and the Micros and the Mid-tiers, and then through to the Megas and the Celeb influencers – when you look at the content it's relatively academic content. So, we knew the hunger for it was there but seeing it in the flesh was interesting.

And yet, the willingness and openness, which is quite interesting in this space to share – there’s almost a lack of boundaries and professional boundaries by these experts to share. They want to share and have the debates and have the discussions and keep it moving. It just feels very impassioned.

CS: From the partnerships you’ve seen while researching this list, what has impressed you?

Hughes: Similar to what I would be impressed by with other brand partnerships, where it feels like an authentic match, where it feels that the creator is really well matched to the brand values. I would say where it is the most fun is where brands are able to work with AI creators because one of the things that we say about this is that the top voices on the topic of AI may not all be using AI tools in content creation, it may be more around the topic and the academia of it. Brands working with creators to use AI to bring products, services, and brand launches to life in a creative way and the boldness of that has been fun to see.

CS: And finally, which platforms did you find that brand partnerships were best suited to the AI space?

Hughes: As part of our push for diversity, we wanted to ensure that all platforms were represented. There are platforms that are more challenging than others. I'd say YouTube was a great one for finding content as was LinkedIn and Reddit. Perhaps surprisingly, Tiktok was challenging but as we got into it, we found some great TikTok creators. It's like creator marketing in general, so much of it follows the audience, so obviously where it worked best was where it was best targeted to the way that the audience consumes on that platform.