Human vs. Generative AI: Strategic content creation mode choices for competing creators

With the rapid development of the platform economy, product-related content (e.g., short videos, copywriting, and live streaming) has emerged as a pivotal determinant of consumer decision-making. The widespread adoption of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) technology enables content creators to produce product-related content more efficiently and at lower cost, yet it concurrently introduces new challenges. Specifically, the proliferation of GAI has heightened consumer skepticism regarding the authenticity and reliability of GAI-created content. Therefore, achieving a balance between GAI application and consumer trust is crucial for content creators. This paper examines a retail platform with two competing content creators who face a strategic choice between two content creation strategies: GAI-creation and human-creation, with consumers exhibiting greater trust in the latter. Our findings indicate that when the costs of GAI-creation are low, creators increase their content effort levels and set higher selling prices. Conversely, higher GAI costs result in reduced effort levels and lower pricing. Notably, under low GAI-creation costs, adopting GAI proves beneficial for creators, irrespective of their competitors’ strategies. Furthermore, if both parties adopt the GAI-creation strategy, a triple-win situation can be achieved among the platform and the two creators. However, when the GAI-creation costs are high, creators eschew GAI adoption regardless of their competitors’ decisions. In such cases, mutual reliance on human-creation yields a triple-win outcome for the entire supply chain. Finally, under hybrid strategy scenarios, the platform systematically guides creators with greater market influence toward the content creation strategy that holds relative advantages.