A survey of nearly 1,800 creators found the community almost perfectly divided on whether AI makes them feel positive or negative about their creative future. The study, conducted by music licensing platform Uppbeat between February and March 2026, also uncovered a contradiction: 46% of creators who say they dislike AI use in other people's work use AI themselves.
The "Uppbeat Creator Report" draws on 1,792 survey responses, 13 in-depth interviews, and 2,643 open-text responses from YouTubers, filmmakers, podcasters, animators, brand creatives, freelancers, and hobbyists.
An almost perfect split
Asked how AI has affected their feelings about their creative future, 37% of respondents said it made them more positive, 35.5% said more negative, and the remainder reported mixed, unsure, or unaffected reactions. Uppbeat characterizes the prevailing mood as "anxious optimism," noting that many creators hold both confidence and worry simultaneously rather than resolving toward one pole.
Within the sample of 1,556 who answered detailed follow-up questions, 46% said they worry about originality or creative value being affected by AI, while 36% said they feel confident they can adapt to new tools, and 33.3% said new technology actively helps them create more or better work.
Anxiety peaks among 25 to 33-year-olds
The report identifies an age effect it calls unexpected: negative sentiment about AI's impact on creative futures is highest among 25 to 33-year-olds (42.9%), ahead of 16 to 24-year-olds (40.4%), and declines steadily through older age brackets, falling to 18.8% among those 56 and older. Uppbeat attributes this to the position of "career builders," who are close enough to earning a living from creative work to feel market pressure without the security of an established stage. Within that 25 to 33 cohort, 49.3% selected reassurance that human creativity still matters as their top-priority need, ahead of efficiency, tools, transparency, or guidance.
The report also finds that "creative identity," defined as a settled sense of who a creator is, what they make and why, correlates more strongly with optimism than age or experience. Creators who report feeling settled in that identity are three times more likely to feel excited about the future and a quarter as likely to feel creatively drained, a pattern the report says holds evenly across every age bracket.
Where creators draw the line on AI use
The survey asked creators which levels of AI use they find acceptable in their own creative work, based on 1,413 responses. Technical assistance, such as noise removal, captions and cleanup, drew the highest acceptance at 59.4%, followed by idea generation and research at 56.5%. Acceptance dropped sharply for AI generating music, sounds, or creative assets (20.2%) and fully AI-generated creative content (6.7%).
That line holds even among creators who report feeling uneasy about AI-heavy work by others. Roughly half of creators say they feel uneasy about heavy AI use in others' work, but the report notes that nearly half of those same critics use AI themselves, which it frames as evidence of a community still working out where its own boundaries sit rather than outright hypocrisy.
What creators want from platforms and support
Across 1,753 responses ranking preferred forms of support, reassurance that human-made creativity still matters ranked highest at 46%, ahead of tools or features for working more efficiently (38%), more transparency from platforms about how they are responding to AI (38%), and help standing out in a crowded feed (28%). Separately, 93.3% of respondents said it matters that creative platforms clearly communicate their stance on AI and human-made work.
In the report's open-text responses, coded across 2,643 entries spanning five survey questions, the most common themes were protecting authenticity and humanity (approximately 28%), followed by concerns about originality and ownership being at risk (approximately 22%) and the joy of the creative process (approximately 18%). Other commonly coded themes included transparency and AI labeling (approximately 14%), artist economic survival (approximately 8%), skills and adaptation (approximately 6%), and efficiency (approximately 4%).
The report also cites external research, including Mintel data that it says found 63% of UK adults value human-made things more since AI emerged, and Ipsos' 2025 AI Monitor, which found respondents preferred human-driven over AI-driven content across the 30 countries surveyed.
Why this matters for creatives
The findings suggest the creative community's real friction point isn't AI itself but the lack of agreed boundaries around it. Creators overwhelmingly accept AI for cleanup, captions, and research, while rejecting it for generating finished work - a distinction that could serve as a practical baseline for setting your own policies. The report's strongest signal, though, is the correlation between a settled creative identity and optimism: creators who can articulate what they make and why are significantly less anxious about AI, regardless of age or experience level. That suggests the most useful response to AI uncertainty may be internal - clarifying your own creative positioning - before external tools or platform policies.
Your membership also unlocks:
