Uppbeat Publishes Creator Report 2026, Finding the Youngest Creators Are the Most Resistant to AI
Survey of 1,792 creators finds 16 to 24 years olds are the least likely to use AI assistance, and only 6.7% of all creators find fully AI-generated content acceptable.
Leeds, UNITED KINGDOM, Aug. 05, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --
The Uppbeat Creator Report 2026
Uppbeat, the royalty-free music and creative assets platform, has published The Uppbeat Creator Report 2026 to find out how artificial intelligence is actually being used by creators.
Its findings challenge the assumption that younger creators are the most comfortable with AI. Among 16 to 24 year olds, 59.2% said they feel negatively about heavy AI use in the work of their peers, the highest figure of any age group in the survey. Across the full sample, three times as many creators feel negatively as positively about AI use in the work of others.
The report also records a contradiction inside that group. Of the creators who said they feel negatively about AI use in other people's work, 46% reported using AI tools in their own.
Creators largely embrace AI as part of their process, but draw the line on handing over full creative control. Asked which uses of AI they find acceptable in creative work, 59.4% accepted technical assistance such as noise removal, captions and clean-up, and 56.5% accepted idea generation and research. Acceptance falls to 20.2% for generating music, sounds or creative assets, and to 6.7% for fully AI-generated creative content.
Sentiment about creators' own futures is evenly split, with 37% saying AI has made them feel more positive about making content, compared with 35.5% that feel more negative. The report identifies creative identity - defined as a settled sense of what a creator makes and why they make it - as a stronger predictor of optimism than age or years of experience.
The Uppbeat Creator Report 2026 is the first in an annual series examining how content creators are responding to artificial intelligence in their working lives. The report draws on a survey of 1,792 creators carried out between February and March 2026, 13 in-depth interviews, and 2,643 open-text responses.
The research was commissioned to establish what creators want from AI at a point when creative platforms are taking markedly different positions on it.
Lewis Foster, CEO and co-founder of Uppbeat, said: "Creators have worked out where they want to embrace technology and where they want to keep hold of the work themselves. That approach to AI and protecting the creative process turns out to be widely shared. It shows that the part of content creation they enjoy the most, simply being creative and making something that’s recognizably theirs, is worth fighting for."
Demand for transparency around the use of AI was close to universal. 93.3% of respondents said it is important that creative platforms communicate their stance on AI and human-made work. Asked what matters most about the platforms they use, 46% wanted reassurance that companies prioritised human-made creativity. This is backed up by 39% of respondents saying that they place more value on human-made asset libraries than they did before AI became widespread.
The findings sit alongside a wider consumer shift. Research published by Mintel in 2025 found that 63% of UK adults value human-made things more since AI emerged.
Sophie Newell, Head of Brand at Uppbeat, said: "One finding that stood out is that the youngest creators are the most resistant. The generation that grew up with these tools is the one drawing the firmest line around human-made work. We also found people criticising AI use while using it themselves, something we chose to leave in the report because it paints an accurate picture of a community still working this new technology out."
The Uppbeat Creator Report 2026 is available here.
Quote from the first report in an annual series examining how content creators are responding to artificial intelligence in their working lives
About Uppbeat
Uppbeat is a royalty-free creative assets platform offering music, sound effects, stock video, motion graphics and LUTs to content creators, filmmakers and brand teams. Every asset in the library is made by a human artist, and contributors are paid for their work.
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https://uppbeat.io
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