2025 was one of the most transformative years the creator economy has ever seen. The global influencer market hit $32.55 billion, AI became a standard part of production, platforms pivoted heavily toward video and monetization models matured. 2026 will be the year influencer marketing becomes measurable, scalable and strategically governed.
Stellar Tech gives brands the system they need, from Discovery to Projects to Reports & Sentiment Analysis.
2025: A Year That Reshaped the Creator Economy
Few years have reshaped the industry as profoundly as 2025. Despite political uncertainty, TikTok regulation debates and shifting algorithm dynamics, the global influencer market continued to grow, reaching $32.55 billion, with 63% of brands planning creator collaborations as part of their annual strategy.
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Focus shifted from vanity metrics toward ROI clarity, performance depth and data-led decision-making. As Adesso highlights, 2026 will accelerate three forces shaping modern creator marketing: AI-integrated workflows, Social Commerce and professionalized brand management.
Influencer marketing is no longer an add-on. It is now a strategic engine of brand growth.
Creators as AI Producers: The New Baseline
2025 was the year AI stopped being a trend and became the silent co-producer behind the majority of creator output. Our own AI in Influencer Marketing Survey, based on 936 responses across five regions, shows how deeply generative tools have reshaped workflows. More than 80% of marketer respondents already use AI multiple times per week, mainly for ideation, editing, and faster asset production. At the same time, 73% rely on AI for image creation, and 91% cite time savings as the biggest benefit.
But the shift comes with tension. 31% worry about generic outcomes, and over half of all creators fear the rise of deepfakes, a concern that now directly affects brand safety and creator selection. Meanwhile, 50% of creators believe AI genuinely improves their content quality, highlighting a fast-maturing production landscape in which creators alternate between human creativity and machine-assisted precision.
For brands, the implication is clear: the core question is no longer whether creators use AI, but how intelligently and consistently. High-quality, repeatable, and scalable production has become a defining indicator of professionalism.
This is where Stellar Tech Discovery becomes invaluable.
The platform goes far beyond surface metrics: it analyzes creators by storytelling patterns, audience authenticity, performance stability, thematic alignment, and long-term growth signals. Supported by AI-assisted semantic search, Discovery identifies creators whose tone, creative logic, and audience dynamics genuinely match a brand’s goals, before a campaign ever begins.
Stellar’s data-driven matching gives brands a reliable foundation in an ecosystem where content accelerates, expectations rise, and authenticity becomes increasingly interconnected with technology.
👉 Download the full AI Survey report HERE:
Instagram 2025: Video First and 2026 Will Only Double Down
Instagram made its direction unmistakably clear: video is becoming its core product.
In 2025, the platform tested three-minute Reels, launched new editing tools and expanded its video-centric discovery surfaces. Instagram’s transformation into a full-funnel video ecosystem means brands must rethink how they brief creators:
- stronger hooks
- tighter narratives
- optimized watchtime
- visual clarity on mobile and beyond
With Stellar Tech Discovery, brands can pinpoint creators who consistently generate strong retention curves, not just bursts of engagement.
TikTok 2025: New Rules, New Dynamics and What This Means for 2026
TikTok continued shaping the creator economy with two major moves:
- AI-powered creative tools
- A revenue-share model offering up to 90% to creators
This transformed TikTok from a trend engine into a professional short-form production environment.
Creators who thrive here are fast, precise and deeply narrative-driven.
With Stellar Tech, brands can evaluate which creators:
- maintain consistent posting rhythms
- use AI tools effectively
- deliver meaningful engagement
- grow audiences through authentic storytelling
This shifts TikTok from “viral roulette” into a controlled, data-led performance channel.
YouTube Shorts: Monetization Unlocks a More Mature Creator Landscape
YouTube expanded its Shorts monetization, offering creators 45% of ad revenue, according to vidIQ.
The result:
Creators began building long-term Shorts series, structured formats and hybrid content that bridges Shorts to long-form videos and search-driven discovery. With Stellar Tech Reports, brands can analyze how Shorts, long-form content and YouTube search reinforce one another, revealing creator ecosystems that deliver not only reach, but longevity.
What 2026 Will Really Demand
Viewed together, the events of 2025 create a clear pattern:
Influencer marketing is becoming more rigorous, more measurable and more strategic.
2026 will belong to brands that:
- treat creator selection as a strategic decision
- build long-term creator ecosystems
- prioritize audience authenticity
- integrate AI into their processes
- measure resonance, not just reach
Stellar Tech provides the toolkit for this shift.
Discovery → finds creators whose audience and communication style genuinely align with brand goals
Influencers → builds the historical and relational backbone for long-term partnerships
Projects → coordinates campaigns with clarity, version control and real-time adaptability
Reports + Sentiment Analysis → transform performance and emotion into actionable insight
Influencer marketing stops being reactive and becomes orchestrated.
2026 will determine who masters influencer marketing — and who merely follows
2025 changed the logic of the creator economy. 2026 will test who can operate it. Brands that rely on intuition will fall behind. Brands that rely on data will grow, predictably, repeatedly, sustainably.
Stellar Tech turns creative collaboration into a measurable system. A system where reach becomes relevance. And relevance becomes results.
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This article is brought to you by Stellar
Stellar is a SaaS platform for influencer marketing, developed by the French-Belgian company Stellar Tech and used in more than 35 countries. By using artificial intelligence, including social listening and sentiment analysis, Stellar enables companies to carry out influencer marketing campaigns in a simple and informed manner. The platform helps identify relevant ambassadors, analyse their profiles and target audiences, manage campaigns, and predict and measure the performance and ROI of these campaigns on social networks.
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