OpenAI is ramping up its creator marketing efforts as AI safety concerns take center stage. The company is prompting influencers to showcase why ChatGPT is "cool" or how it can support work that's "good for the world". OpenAI doubled the number of sponsored Instagram posts promoting ChatGPT from 61 in June to 122 in July, and then increased it further to 141 in August, according to data compiled by the influencer marketing platform HypeAuditor.

Business Insider reviewed dozens of sponsored posts for OpenAI's ChatGPT product and spoke with six managers and creators who had worked with the company. The company is casting a wide net, reaching out to parenting and fitness influencers as well as tech-savvy creators to broaden its user base and grow its advertising business. The message: ChatGPT can help you parent, run a business, create content, plan a workout, and be a good person.

OpenAI's influencer strategy can be split into two buckets: getting businesses to pay for enterprise tools and keeping millions of consumers coming back to ChatGPT. Working with OpenAI can be risky for creators, as some influencers who post sponsored content for AI companies are getting dragged by their audiences. A small group of creators who attended an OpenAI brand trip in August were told their content was "morally bankrupt" and "dystopian" in their comments sections.

Despite the risks, companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Higgsfield AI are pitching influencers. "In the five inboxes that I manage alone, every single day, I would say at least 15 emails are from an AI company or some AI feature," Amanda Acevedo, a talent manager at G&B Digital Management, told Business Insider. Creator Natasha Badger, who makes content about marketing and tech, said it was a "big war" between AI companies over "who can get the most market share and work with the most influencers."

Influencers are painting OpenAI's portrait as a helpful tool that can support various aspects of life. Founders-turned-influencers have been the cream of the crop for OpenAI's #ad strategy. Acevedo said the company is keen on working with creators who can tell a vivid story about how they're strategically using AI to "build an actual business." Badger, for instance, worked with OpenAI in July to promote its ChatGPT Work tools.

The Influencer Strategy

OpenAI has been open to hearing influencers' content ideas rather than pushing a narrow script, insiders who've worked on campaigns said. "They want it to be catered to a specific use case that resonates with our lives and day-to-day," Badger said. OpenAI's influencer strategy, however, is growing well beyond B2B marketing. At the start of September, The Shade Room — a meme page with over 28 million Instagram followers — shared a sponsored post with ChatGPT. It wasn't a demo of how AI could streamline your workflow. It was a word search puzzle generated by ChatGPT.

One talent manager said OpenAI representatives had expressed interest in working with fitness creators, since health and running questions are such common use cases for ChatGPT. HypeAuditor's analysis of hundreds of Instagram posts promoting ChatGPT found these were the core topics: coding, productivity, career development, health, travel, education, content creation, shopping, and home projects.

This article was written with the assistance of AI.
News Factory APP - agentic news to boost your SEO & AEO.