It's Thursday and John Deere is putting a new twist on the title of CTO. The farm machinery brand is on the lookout for a TikTok account manager, who will be crowned “Chief Tractor Officer.”

DO IT FOR THE ‘GRAM

Instagram plans to turn your favorite creators into AI chatbots

Instagram wants to help creators outsource fan interactions.

The experiment: According to the New York Times, the Meta-owned platform is testing a program designed to facilitate direct messages between influencers and followers. The planned outcome of that experiment—called Creator AI—is a legion of AI chatbots trained to mimic the voices of participating creators.

• Much of that training will reportedly be based on data supplied by creators themselves (such as Instagram posts, DMs, comments, Reels audio, and custom phrases).
  
  

• The identities of those influencer partners are less clear. The Times’ sources (aka “people briefed on [Instagram’s] plans”) were unable to name specific Creator AI creators due to nondisclosure agreements. Meta also declined to comment.

The upside: If Creator AI comes to fruition, it has the potential to simplify (and even monetize) audience-building while allowing creators to devote their attention to more lucrative ventures.

• That opportunity to save time and money without sacrificing fan satisfaction is likely to be particularly attractive to creators who routinely manage millions of interactions with followers.

The implications: Of course, the viability of those upsides hinges on a positive response from fans. User interest in Meta’s previous AI celebrity collaboration (which produced 28 chatbot characters styled after stars like MrBeast) faded quickly, with some bot-generated posts drawing derision from viewers.

• And then there’s the other issue. The rise of generative AI has stoked fears that virtual bots will soon replace influencers altogether—a concern that’s only been exacerbated by rumors that TikTok plans to introduce virtual creators to the influencer marketing world.
  
  

• If creators perceive Creator AI as a similar threat to their livelihoods, the program could struggle to attract the number of prominent partners it needs to succeed.

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• WME has signed culinary Shorts creator Nick DiGiovanni for representation in all areas. (Tubefilter)
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• TikTok has begun testing TikTok Notes—a “dedicated space for photo and text content”—in Australia and Canada. (TechCrunch)

• Twitch announced yesterday that its new TikTok-esque discovery feed will be available to all users before the month is out. (The Verge)
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• Snap says it will soon begin adding watermarks to AI-generated images that are saved or exported by users. (Engadget)

COLUMNS • CREATORS ON THE RISE 📈

“The King of Chemo” plans to run marathons on every continent—including Antarctica

How it started: In 2019, Iain Ward joined a medical trial focused on brain wavelengths. That wasn’t unusual; as a fitness instructor, the future creator often participated in studies as a way to supplement his income. He figured a brain-focused trial wouldn’t be any different.

• He was right: the study was wholly uneventful, with normal results all around. So, Ward enrolled in another—and quickly learned that he had a tumor. Additional tests (conducted shortly after the creator began filming gaming streams) determined that it wasn’t a benign condition.
  
  

• With a final prognosis of stage 3 brain cancer, Ward decided to change the direction of his online content:

How it’s going: Nowadays, Ward is a full-time creator with over 7 million TikTok and Instagram followers. He leverages his growing following to secure cancer research donations from sponsors (in exchange for promotional campaigns) and recently raised a yearly total of “about a third of a million.” Now, he has his eye on a much bigger figure.

What’s up next: Ward is on a mission to surpass the most money raised by a marathon runner: £2.3 million. To snag that Guinness World Record, the creator is partnering with the American Cancer Society to host a massive, cross-continental fundraiser.

• Beginning in October, Ward will run a marathon every day for seven days across all seven continents. That incredible feat will begin in Antarctica and wrap up in Miami (and hopefully raise millions of dollars in the process).
  
  

• Until then, fans can follow Ward’s journey here.

DATA • U.S. TOP 50 📊

U.S. Top 3: Is Toys and Colors the most popular kids’ channel in the U.S.?

🥇 The playground: Toys and Colors is back on top. The pocket.watch-affiliated hub has reclaimed the #1 spot in our U.S. Top 50 chart after scoring a seven-day total of 472.4 million views.

• That haul makes Toys and Colors the only kid-focused channel in this week’s top five—and given that many of YouTube’s biggest children’s channels are now based outside the U.S., it’s likely that the American hub will retain that reigning spot for a while.

🥈 The Shorts star: It’s already been a big month for Zack D. Films. The short-form creator blew past 10 billion lifetime views early in April and has since hit a grand total of 10.5 million subscribers.

• All that growth contributed to a killer seven-day run. Zack D. Films picked up 467.4 million views in a single week, bringing him to the highest ranking he’s ever achieved in our U.S. chart.

🥉 The challenger: For most creators, an 8% week-over-week viewership dip wouldn’t result in a #3 finish in the U.S. MrBeast’s primary channel is built differently: even after a modest decline in performance, the challenge-focused hub still claimed 458.5 million weekly views during our most recent seven-day measurement period.

WATCH THIS 📺

Airrack is back at it with another super-sized snack item

The big day: When it comes to cravings, viewers can always depend on Airrack to go big. The YouTuber has already earned two Guinness World Records this year by creating the world’s largest pizza (in partnership with Pizza Hut) and visiting 100 pizza places within twenty-four hours.

• Now, Airrack is bringing some big drink energy to 7-Eleven’s annual Slurpee Day. Will his super-sized cup qualify as the largest in the world? Maybe not—but it’s definitely big enough to trigger one hell of a brain freeze.

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Today's newsletter is from: Emily Burton, Sam Gutelle, and Josh Cohen. Drew Baldwin helped edit, too. It's a team effort.