How Brands Use Creator Content for AI Search (AEO)

3 min read · October 27, 2026 · Adapted from Sundae Tuesdae, Issue 31

Meta's CFO said last week that partnership ads have passed $15 billion a year. Partnership ads are mostly the ones where a brand pays to run a creator's post as an ad, with the creator's name still on it. Earlier this year Meta put that number at $10 billion. It nearly doubled in twelve months, on one platform, for one ad product.

That's the part showing up on earnings calls. The part I'm watching more closely is what AI assistants say when somebody asks which stroller, hotel or blender to buy.

Creator ads hit $15B. AEO is next. 41% of brands investing in creators already use creator content to shape AI search. Source: LTK and Northwestern University, Oct 2026.

AI assistants are already quoting creators

More and more, they answer with creator videos. Jellyfish looked at 27 million responses from seven AI assistants and found YouTube creator content in more than a quarter of them, and in nearly half for consumer electronics and financial services. Independent, niche creators outranked brand-owned content and celebrity influencers.

Brands have noticed. LTK and Northwestern University's Retail Analytics Council surveyed 209 senior marketers in June, all at brands already investing in creators and most with more than $100 million in revenue. 41% already use creator content to shape what AI says about their products. That wasn't even a question on last year's survey.

Always-on is built for AEO

91% of those brands run some part of their creator program always-on, and my guess is search is where that pays off most over the next 12 to 18 months. An assistant can only recommend what it keeps finding, and a campaign that wrapped in March doesn't do much for you in October.

The kind of creator matters too. In the same study, certified experts such as chefs, dietitians and trainers posted the biggest gain in importance of any creator type, up 18 points to 49%. Those are the specific, knowledgeable voices AI search tends to reward. SharkNinja's new employee creator program is full of that kind of voice, including a demo chef who tests products before they launch.

We all know the path from a creator post to a paid social ad. Find the winners, put money behind them, watch the return. Nobody has that playbook yet for AEO: how much to put into it, which budget it comes out of, how to tell whether it worked. Whoever works that out first gets to write it.

One video, a lot of jobs

The rest of the plan is catching up too. About half of those brands run creator content in email and display, more than a third put it on connected TV, and two-thirds use or plan to use it on retail media networks.

Marriott showed what that looks like with a camera. Instead of a traditional shoot for its new global brand platform, Marriott Bonvoy worked with travel creators through Beautiful Destinations, shot across 10 countries and 14 hotel brands, and had finished assets in four weeks. That footage is on more than 1,600 billboards and airport screens, and the social cuts run into 2027.

Price the deal for every job

I'd bet most creator contracts out there were still written for one job. A fee, a deliverable, thirty days of usage if somebody remembered to ask. Later's research says 61% of creators charge extra for raw files or longer usage rights. That's fair, and it's a lot cheaper to settle in the first deal than after a video takes off.

Next time a creator brief crosses your desk, ask where else that video could run, including in an AI answer, and price it that way. Meta's $15 billion says plenty of brands are already doing the math.

— Jeremiah Rosen, Sundae Collective

This piece first ran in Sundae Tuesdae for October 27, 2026. Subscribe to get it every Tuesday.

Want to know whether your creator content shows up when people ask AI? We'll check. Get in touch.

Sources: