Until recently, creators and influencers could boost their visibility and their potential earnings by winning the search battleground on Instagram, TikTok, or Google. But a shift in search behavior is reshaping creator and influencer discovery. AI-powered search has emerged and is drawing more and more people away from traditional search tools, which means the pathways people use to find creators are shifting.

And the shift affects more than just efforts to add more followers. Those in the creator marketplace now must contend with the fact that agencies are increasingly using AI tools to identify creators, while marketers are beginning to build AI visibility into creator briefs and partnership strategies. Adjusting to this shift is important, but experts say the evolution of search behavior won't impact all creators equally.

“How AI search affects creators depends a lot on the type of content and the platform they’re on,” says Max Anderson, Owner and CEO of OnlyFinder, the leading search engine for OnlyFans launched in 2020.

Anderson’s work is focused on creator discovery, ad-tech, digital marketplace economics, consumer behavior, and the data behind how users find and engage with creators online. Through OnlyFinder, a search and discovery platform built around the creator economy, he brings a data-driven perspective on OnlyFans trends, search behavior, monetization, and digital publishing.

“For informational queries, for example, AI is simply a better experience,” Anderson says. “Instead of clicking through 10 blue links and scanning pages for an answer, you ask and get it, and that cannibalizes a very large share of informational search. So if your business is influencer marketing involving informational content, it’s at risk because LLMs will answer those questions directly, and they may or may not cite you. But information retrieval is only one mode of internet behavior.”

Adjusting to how AI search is changing the way people find creators starts with understanding where AI search shines and where it struggles. As Anderson mentions above, AI search is a huge help to those who are looking for information. But analytics derived from recent research show that informational searches account for just over half of the searches people make on Google. And AI search isn’t the best for the other half.

“People go online to shop, comparing options, photos and data side by side, which carries far more commercial value,” Anderson points out. “And they go online to be entertained, to sit back and browse. AI is a much worse experience for both of those.”

The limitations Anderson mentions above suggest creators can avoid being sidelined by being intentional about the way they package their content. Getting direct views, rather than being filtered through AI search results, requires offering experiences that AI isn’t adept at providing.

“The pivot for creators is to offer experiences that don’t make sense inside an LLM interface,” Anderson says. “For example, if you’re providing long-form video that a person actually wants to watch, people will opt for that over an AI-generated synopsis of your video.”

Anderson also points out that the category of content can have an impact on the degree to which creators are affected by AI search. For example, while everyday tasks and academic subjects are core categories for AI search, queries about NSFW topics are often declined.

“If you’re among the nearly 5 million OnlyFans creators, for example, you’re largely unaffected by AI search because, as a matter of policy, the major AI tools won’t answer those questions,” Anderson says. “Ask Google, or a vertical search engine like OnlyFinder, for the best redhead OnlyFans creators, and you get a ranked list of exactly what you wanted. Ask ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini, and they decline.”

How to connect with companies that use AI search as a creator discovery tool

While AI’s effect on finding new followers is important to address, creators also must consider the way it impacts creator partnerships. If companies are now using AI search to find a creator, then creators need to find reliable ways to be included in AI search results.

“An LLM fundamentally predicts the most likely next word based on a huge corpus of internet content used to train it,” Anderson explains. “The more content out there expressing a certain view, the more likely the model is to repeat it. Structured data matters, but what matters most for creators is the quantity of content across many sites. Frequency is what drives success in AI search.”

Anderson recommends that creators looking to show up in AI search build pages on as many platforms as possible, with a consistent name, username, bio, tagline, and photos. Once the pages are established, creators can build their “AI authority” by being repetitive with their messaging.

“If you’re very active on one main platform, use tools to take your content, chop it up, and republish it elsewhere,” Anderson says. “Repetition and breadth of distribution are how you show up more in AI answers, or get them to express the view you’re trying to put into the world.”

Experts are predicting AI will play an increasingly important role in shaping consumer behavior, both by providing a powerful new search pathway and by refining traditional search processes. For creators and influencers who want to remain relevant, adjusting to the new rules of discovery must be a priority. At present, that means taking steps to build AI authority while also offering value that a simple AI overview can’t provide.

This story was distributed as a release by Jon Stojan under HackerNoon’s Business Blogging Program.