'On-demand' is becoming 'at-demand'
The future of content is at-demand
The creator economy has been all about vast libraries of content, available on-demand (Netflix, Spotify, Youtube, Xbox Game Pass, etc.).
In the era of generative AI, a large segment of content will move from being available on-demand, to being generated at-demand.
At-demand content is content that will be produced for you in the moment that you ask for it
The trajectory from on-demand to at-demand is already in motion:
Google search has vast swarths of content available on-demand - you ask it a question and it serves you thousands of blue hyperlinks with potential answers
ChatGPT (Google search’s newest competitor) offers unlimited content at-demand - you ask it a question and it creates a bespoke response in the moment that you need it
At-demand content turns a search engine into an answer engine by aggregating and expressing information from diverse sources into one unified, more informative, more nuanced result. The answer you are looking for is generated when you ask for it.
Beyond improving content delivery, at-demand content will also revolutionize content discovery, replacing ‘discovery’ with ‘production’
You don’t need to discover content by scrolling through thousands of options on a feed when any content imaginable can be produced for you on the spot.
At-demand content will solve the age-old problem of “there’s nothing on”.
At-demand content underpins the Created Economy, the next major content paradigm wherein content is generated by AI more often, and better, than it is produced by creators.
For more on that, check out the full piece below:
At-demand content gives users the opportunity to produce exactly what they are looking for, in the moment that they are looking for it.
This will fundamentally disrupt content consumption, creation, and discovery, forcing every business, and the interfaces they produce, to adapt.
What will Spotify look like when you ask it for new music at-demand, rather than search for existing music on-demand?
What will Netflix look like when you ask it for new episodes of your favourite show at-demand, rather than rewatching existing episodes on-demand?
What will Twitter look like when you ask it for new interesting ideas at-demand, rather than scrolling through existing tweets on-demand?
Keep an eye out for how the interfaces you use every day adapt to at-demand content (*ahem* Bing) and share them with me on Twitter: @theodesigning.