Fiverr has launched Fiverr GO, a couplet of new tools comprising an AI assistant aimed at helping reduce the number of non-billable hours for creators by facilitating negotiations with clients on their behalf, and an AI generator tool that allows clients to emulate the work of creators for a fee. This is a pretty big deal as Fiverr represents a significant maypole in the freelancing world, with over 4.2 million active buyers and a huge database of freelancers (the actual figure is unknown).

The integration of AI into such a major stakeholder in freelancing signals a few important points about AI in the workplace and what the future might look like for creative freelancers. Starting with the AI assistant tool, it does what it claims to do and responds to client enquiries. While it still follows the model of many other AI services, that being a generalised AI tool with some specialised features, it’s very easy to see how the integration of a personal assistant into a platform like Fiverr could be useful.

The tool draws from creators’ communication history on the platform as well as their profile in order to to develop their tone of voice and communicate with potential clients. Allowing creators to chat and negotiate with customers on their behalf, does, in theory, seem like a great way to reduce non-billable hours and focus on the creation side of the work. On the flip side, client enquiries are precious and paid work is a freelancers lifeblood. Will freelance creators feel confident putting the fate of their income into to an AI Assistant tool acting as their virtual agent? 

A lot of the fear festering in the AI landscape involves worry about where creators fit in. The idea of an AI Assistant feels slightly more like the utopian vision we were pitched a few years ago- that is, a tool working closely with creators in order to take away the menial tasks that eat into time we could be creating. 

Still, that feeling of utopia may be short-lived, particularly given that the headline product of Fiverr Go - an AI Content Generation tool - carries some major concerns. The tool allows clients to pay creators for AI generated work based on their original creations - think art styles reproduced, copywriting generated, and anything else that exists on the platform. Creators have some control over the generation, with the ability to train, retrain, restrain, and delete at will, but ultimately the AI work produces a version of their work that is owned by client, not the creator.

Rather than empower creators as Fiverr claim (“not just AI - your AI”, they write everywhere possible), this may prompt potential clients to steal and manipulate the hard work of others in AI platforms themselves - given that Fiverr Go is offering Generative AI that doesn’t differ too much from openly available, free services, it’s hard to see clients consistently paying for a service that they can do themselves.

Moreover, while creators can edit and delete the generative AI function on Fiverr Go, if the rest of the platform is soaked in AI generation and the tool provides uber-quick results for clients, creators will have no choice but to consent; AI in the workplace is insisted upon by its own usage elsewhere, as competitive rates and fast turnaround times subsume slower, more handmade labour.

In some niches of the market, there has been a renaissance in the handmade, in the manual, deliberate actions of work. Physical media has been rising in popularity, with Vinyl records, Blu-ray and DVD, and point-and-shoot cameras making something of a comeback now that young people have a growing desire to own, borrow, and lend their own means of consumption.

While this is encouraging, it remains the case that these trends are responsive to modes of consumption like AI or streaming platforms. That Fiverr, then, is tailoring to the needs of AI rather than the rights of those that sustain the platform, is worrying. Moreover, the fact that they didn’t stop at the AI assistant and chose to develop an AI generation tool that draws from the work and labour of creators sends out a concerning message - if we can’t beat ‘em, we’ll join ‘em.