Shreddy and Tala entrepreneur Grace Beverley announced she is the co-founder of a new AI business which is aiming to democratise creator management. It is called Retrograde and she has teamed up with tech whizzes Jake Browne and Gary Meehan to build a proposition which (broadly) promises to automate communication between brands and creators to make deals simpler. Can AI really make sense of campaign negotiations – one of the industry’s most complicated processes? Let’s unpack Retrograde’s potential and where it might sit in the market.
Here’s the truth from the outset: AI can’t replace managers. Yes, there are currently a lot of bad players in this space and we all know it. However, for every unresponsive, disruptive creator manager there is a manager turning down deals to protect their talent’s IP at their own expense. A manager that will never tell their talent what it really took to build their career.
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It is unlikely that James Duncan and Fuhad Dawodu – AKA the creators of ShxtsNGigs – would have produced a sold-out O2 Arena concept without YMU. Sky Kids’ gaming show Let’s Game featuring YouTubers DanTDM and Yammy would not exist without MonRae Management. Consider The Kabs Family’s trajectory – from Teija’s role in Netflix film The Kitchen to the bigger picture of perfectly positioned campaigns. Season25 is a driving force in this journey. Look at what KOMI is building in Manchester – a talent business with serious long-term vision and big picture understanding of digital.
The reality is many meetings and conversations – not to mention contract drafts – occur behind the scenes for any of this to be possible. AI cannot replicate a good manager’s combination of drive, strategy and diplomacy.
However, the creator industry is one of layers. There are talents who will have a presence across every channel and those who will make driving revenue for brands via TikTok their sole focus. There are those who are essential for positioning luxury and those who have a niche expertise that just so happens to entertain millions. There are UGC creators, podcasters and, increasingly, Substackers.
There has been an explosion of talent since the pandemic and the truth is, not every creator needs management. With the right tools, they could successfully initiate a business built on brand deals with technology such as Retrograde. Also, a tool like this could allow creators to stay independent for longer until they truly understand their own ambition. Managers have told me countless times that when a talent doesn’t know what they want, their job can be impossible.
The reality is that, like every tech product, what Retrograde starts as will evolve towards the part of its proposition that the market really wants and needs. It may become an essential part of managers’ tool kit. It could appeal deeply to entrepreneurial UGC creators. It won’t replace managers but it could be useful across the board and help grow the creator economy. For this reason, I’m excited about what happens next.
By Sara McCorquodale, CEO and founder of CORQ. Picture credit: Grace Beverley via Instagram. See my TikTok on Retrograde here.
