Making more money as a creator doesn’t buy you a break from AI. It seems to do the opposite. According to Business Insider‘s Lucia Moses, a new survey found that the higher a creator’s income, the more pressure they feel to bring AI into their work.

Six-figure creators and music artists in the US were more than three times as likely as the lowest earners to say they felt “large” or “very large” pressure to use AI: 64% versus 19%. That pressure climbed steadily with each step up the income ladder.

Who ran the numbers

The data comes from Sapio Research, which surveyed 2,000 professional content creators and music artists in the US between March and April on behalf of Epidemic Sound, the Swedish music and sound platform. The income breakdown was shared exclusively with Business Insider.

Bigger earners aren’t just feeling the push, they’re acting on it. Per the survey, 44% of creators making $50,000 to $100,000 said they used fully AI-generated music or content in their work, and 45% of those earning over $100,000 said the same. Among creators making under $5,000, only 23% did.

Why the top tier feels it most

Gracie Schram, Epidemic Sound’s global head of creator partnerships and strategy, told the outlet that higher earners carry heavier output and distribution expectations. She added that they tend to be early adopters and have access to more tools.

“They’re distributing multiple videos every day, on YouTube, Snapchat, Spotify,” Schram said. “It comes with this distribution predicament. They’re getting invited to do more stuff on platforms, which leads to more pressure to make more stuff. With these big creators, it’s a huge amount of pressure to stay relevant.”

Henrik Olsson, a Stockholm-based music artist who makes music for Epidemic Sound, said he earns a “comfortable living” and relies on AI for scripting and editing his social media content. Schram said many of the creators she works with use it the same way, to speed up editing or test A/B concepts, or to make storyboards that never end up in the final piece.

The trust problem

The catch is that a creator’s business runs on audience trust, and the US public is still uneasy about AI. Some creators also worry about the reputational hit of having platforms label their work as AI-generated.

Victoria Bachan, CEO of talent management agency Hyphen, told Business Insider that the risk depends on the creator. Those who use AI to crank out volume, or in ways followers see as fake, are most exposed to backlash. “It comes down to, ‘What is your social contract with the audience you serve?'” she said. “You aren’t going to have AI make a recipe. We do have creators who have done AI deals, but it aligns with their content like tech, finance education.”

Creators themselves seem to agree. In the survey, 77% of US creators said human-made content is becoming a premium offering, and 78% said clear AI disclosure is essential to keeping their audience’s trust.

Epidemic Sound’s bigger picture

The survey is part of a wider research series. In a year-end report announced November 12, Epidemic Sound pulled together its 2026 research on 4,500 respondents across the UK and US, including 3,000 professional content creators, 1,000 music artists and 500 brand representatives.

Across that research, 73% said they expect to use AI more over the next year, but only 66% said AI-generated content currently meets their expectations for creative quality. And 76% said disclosing AI use is essential for trust.

The company’s predictions for 2027 include human-made content and sound helping creators stand out as content volumes grow, and creators building closer, more direct relationships with their audiences beyond platform algorithms.

The takeaway

For creators who sell access to themselves, including subscription creators on platforms like OnlyFans, this is the tension to watch. AI can help you keep up with the content treadmill, but the people paying you are paying for you. The survey suggests the smartest play is using AI behind the scenes for the grunt work, being upfront about it, and keeping the part fans actually pay for unmistakably human. As Olsson put it: “We have to be one step ahead.”