AI-Powered UGC: When Creators Become Systems

The Next Media Shift Won’t Come from Studios

At a recent presentation, I focused briefly on the coming tectonic shift in media creativity and production that will be fostered in as a result of AI and the tidal wave of individual user generated content (UGC) flowing to TikTok, Instagram and other social media platforms. This post delves into a little more detail on why and how this is happening, and why media executives should not only pay close attention, but consider this in the strategies and investments.

AI has been expanding who gets to create for far longer than most people realize. Long before today’s explosion of tools, the idea of artificial intelligence was first explored in 1956 at Dartmouth College, where researchers asked whether intelligence itself could be engineered. The original ambition wasn’t automation or efficiency, it was understanding cognition by attempting to recreate it.

That question remained largely academic until a conversational interface was placed on top of large language models. Suddenly, AI felt tangible. You could describe what you wanted and receive text, images, or media in return. These tools fit neatly into existing creative workflows (assisting with writing, editing, compositing, or sound design) producing components that were later assembled, refined, and distributed through familiar channels.

At first, this seemed like an incremental improvement to the creative process. Each step became faster, cheaper, or more accessible. What few people focused on initially was the downstream impact once these empowered individuals could publish directly to an audience without institutional friction.

At the same time, content consumption itself was changing. For decades, entertainment lived in two dominant forms: the cinema “big screen” and the television “small screen.” That model fractured as mobile devices introduced new formats, new aspect ratios, and new expectations around length and pacing. Short-form, vertically-oriented, algorithmically-surfaced content became not just acceptable, but preferred.

The result is a generation of creators — often individuals or very small teams — producing content at near-studio quality, at unprecedented speed, and without the inherited constraints of traditional production norms. With these creators freed from earlier conventions, experimentation flourished. Entirely new entertainment patterns emerged, sometimes lasting only weeks (can you even name one song from those short-form dance videos that have flooded TikTok and Instagram?), but still reshaping audience expectations in the process.

…and along comes AI to add fuel to an already burning fire

But an even more profound shift is now underway. Until recently, most AI-assisted content still resolved into static outputs that a human in the loop (HITL) still packaged into a finished video, a completed image, a final script. The audience consumed it the same way they always had. What’s changing now is the move from AI generated content as the artifact that is HITL refined to content as a system that is delivered direct to consumer, and soon, on demand.

When AI tools are woven together into cohesive frameworks, they can produce media that follows a creator’s intent while leaving room for adaptation. Personalization is the most obvious outcome, but it’s only the beginning. The more radical possibility is participation.

What happens when the viewers themselves become variables in the story? When characters respond to them? When narratives subtly adjust based on interaction? When a story evolves not just because the creator updates it, but because audiences collectively shape it over time?

In this model, characters adapt, narratives respond, and formats evolve. The creator’s role shifts. They are no longer just telling stories — they are designing living media environments.

This may sound speculative, but audiences have already been trained to expect it. Video games have spent decades teaching people that entertainment can be interactive, persistent, and shaped by choice. Games remember players. Actions have consequences. Experiences unfold differently for different participants. When you play Fortnite, a massively multiplayer online game (MMO or MMOG), you’re shaping the unfolding story for you and all the others playing in the same game.

Fortnite offers a particularly telling example. It functions less like a game and more like a continuously evolving media world. Storylines unfold collaboratively. Events happen live. Audiences don’t merely watch… they participate. The lesson is clear: once people experience entertainment that responds to them, passive consumption starts to feel incomplete.

Now imagine what happens when that interactivity collides with the narrative craft of film and television. When game-like agency meets cinematic storytelling. Media becomes more than something you watch. It becomes something that listens, adapts, and evolves.

This doesn’t eliminate movies or TV. Linear storytelling will always matter. But the edges of media (how stories extend, deepen, and get personalized) are being redefined.

Which leads to the uncomfortable question many media and technology executives are quietly asking:

Why should I care?

If you are in the business of creating, packaging, distributing, or monetizing media, this matters because audience expectations are shifting toward experiences that feel alive. They move at a new pace that is more like snacking than sitting for meal.  The next generation of entertainment won’t simply be defined by production value or distribution reach, but by responsiveness and relevance. The critical question isn’t whether this future arrives. It’s who owns the relationship with the audience when it does.

That’s why there are a few things leaders should be thinking about now.

1. Think systems, not shows. Future content won’t just be episodes or seasons. It will be frameworks — worlds, characters, and rules that adapt and evolve over time.

2. Design for interaction, even if you don’t use it yet. You don’t need to make everything interactive today, but you should be building IP that could respond tomorrow.

3. Reframe the creator relationship. Tomorrow’s breakout franchises may come from small, AI-native teams, not traditional studios. The opportunity may lie in partnering, enabling, and amplifying rather than owning everything outright.

4. Treat AI as a creative partner, not just a cost tool. The real value isn’t efficiency. It’s personalization, responsiveness, and the ability to scale experiences without losing relevance.

The next big media shift is NOT coming from the big studio productions. It will be coming from systems.