Monetizing Generative AI: YouTubers' Collective Knowledge on Earning from Generative AI Content
This research provides insights into the collective knowledge and practices of YouTubers monetizing generative AI content, which is important for understanding the evolving landscape of creative labor and platform policies.
This paper analyzes 377 YouTube videos to understand how creators monetize content generated by AI. It identifies ten shared use cases for AI-supported income opportunities and examines how creators leverage platform infrastructures like advertising, direct sales, affiliate marketing, and revenue-sharing models.
Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is reshaping creative labor by enabling the rapid production of text, images, and videos. On YouTube, creators are developing new ways to leverage these tools and share knowledge about how to pursue income through such strategies. However, little is known about what GenAI knowledge has been collectively constructed around monetizing GenAI as a community practice of acting both with and against algorithmically mediated platforms. We analyze 377 YouTube videos in which creators publicly promote workflows, revenue claims, and monetization strategies for GenAI-enabled content. Our analysis identifies ten shared use cases that frame AI-supported income opportunities, and examines how this GenAI knowledge repository embodies a collective effort to leverage platform infrastructures for monetization -- including advertising, direct sales, affiliate marketing, and revenue-sharing models. We further surface structural tensions in AI-mediated creative labor, including unverifiable income claims, content misappropriation, synthetic engagement practices, and shifting authorship norms. We conceptualize creators' collective understanding and adoption of GenAI in the context of monetizing creative labor, with implications for the design of creator-centered GenAI technologies and responsible platform policy.