At a time when AI is already replacing gig workers, Fiverr says they're taking a different approach.
On Wednesday, the freelancing marketplace announced a program for users to train AI on their own body work and use it for future creative projects. The program, called the Personal AI Creation Model is part of a larger AI initiative called Fiverr Go, designed to let freelancers use AI's automation capabilities as a tool rather than be replaced by it.
"It’s a recognition that there’s a growing demand and cultural headwind behind supporting workers and creators amid the AI blitz," Brian Merchant, tech journalist and author of Luddite uprising saga Blood in the Machine, told Mashable in an X message.
"Instead of letting creators be exploited, Fiverr Go ensures they receive proper credit and compensation while giving them unprecedented tools to scale their work," said CEO Micha Kaufman in the announcement. "This is about making our freelancers irreplaceable, not obsolete."
A late 2024 study from the Harvard Business Review found a "steep decrease" in demand for coding and creative jobs following the introduction of ChatGPT and widescale release of AI image generating tools like Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and DALL-E. The gig economy is already precarious for workers since they face competition with each other and don't have the benefits and protections that come with full time jobs. Now gig workers are forced to compete with generative AI — often trained on their own work – which can code, write, create images, audio, and video, and doesn't need to sleep or eat.
It's a novel approach to adopting AI, especially since some companies have blatantly opted to lay off and replace workers with AI automation in other industries. Fiverr competitors like Upwork and PeoplePerHour have implemented AI assistants to connect customers with freelancers — something that Fiverr also launched on Wednesday. But as far as we know, none have directly embraced leveraging genAI for its creators.
"In theory, this seems to be the right way to engage AI, with workers in mind — as long as the terms are good, approved by workers and creators, and actually equitable," said Merchant. "You do worry that this is paying lip service to creators without delivering — as for example Adobe did with its program that offered artists compensation for letting their work be trained but really didn’t benefit them much."
Fiverr's AI Creation Model gives freelancers "control over their creative process and rights," allowing creators to "configure their models" and "set their prices" said the press release. The program will be available in categories including voiceover, songwriting, graphic design, copywriting, and marketing.
Customers can pay to download AI-generated works created by freelancers or "contact the freelancer of an AI-generated work as a starting point for a project, as an example or inspiration, and ask for a specific service," said a Fiverr spokesperson to TechCrunch.
But training AI on your own work and making money from its creations isn't free. AI Creation Models cost $25 a month and are initially limited to "top, vetted freelancers." The AI personal booking assistant is available as part of the Seller Plus Premium plan for $29 a month. So we'll let you crunch the numbers and decide whether it's worth it.
