growth in Runway AI Film Festival submissions in two years — about 300 in 2023, about 6,000 in 2025
Fortune, May 2024; AP, June 2025AI creation is scaling. Identity and owned channels are becoming infrastructure.
Five shifts shape the market CHANNEL partners serve: AI video at volume, rules on labelling and authorship, creators moving to channels they own, technology reaching small buyers through partners, and Asia Pacific as the fastest-growing region. Each figure below names its publisher and date.
Figures as published up to October 2026
Six numbers to start with
of 16,000+ creators in eight markets use creative generative AI
Adobe Creators’ Toolkit Report, October 2025creators on Kling AI, with more than 600 million videos generated
Kuaishou, January 2026EU AI Act transparency duties for AI-generated content apply; China’s labelling measures took effect on 1 Sep 2025
EU AI Act Art. 50; Cyberspace Administration of Chinaof creators say reaching their followers is harder than five years ago
Patreon, State of Create 2025of small and mid-sized business IT spending flows through partners in 2026 — 81% in Asia Pacific
Omdia, February 2026 (forecast)AI video has moved from experiment to volume.
Generation is now cheap, fast and everywhere. Output is growing faster than any audience can watch it.
The AI video generator market was USD 788.5 million in 2025 and is projected to reach USD 3.44 billion by 2033 (20.3% a year). Asia Pacific accounted for 31% of 2025 revenue.
Grand View Research, AI Video Generator Market report, 2026ForecastKling AI reported revenue above RMB 650 million in Q1 2026, up more than 300% year on year, with more than 60 million creators and 600 million videos generated.
Kuaishou, January and May 2026Google’s Flow filmmaking tool produced 100 million videos in its first three months.
TVBEurope citing CNET, August 2025The Astana AI Film Festival 2026 received 8,067 films from 4,756 creators in 125 countries.
The Astana Times, September 2026
When anyone can generate a film, generating is no longer what sets a creator apart. A verifiable identity and a documented record of each work are what let buyers, festivals and platforms tell one creator from another.
What it means for creators
Register works and characters early, with versions and credits, so the record exists before a dispute or a deal needs it.
What it means for partners
Every new AI studio, course cohort and festival entrant is a customer who needs records, a site and someone to set them up.
Labelling and authorship are becoming requirements.
The largest markets now regulate how AI-generated content is marked, and courts and registries weigh human authorship.
China’s Measures for Labelling AI-Generated and Synthetic Content took effect on 1 September 2025. They require visible labels and metadata labels and prohibit removing or forging them.
Cyberspace Administration of China and three ministries, March 2025From 2 August 2026, Article 50 of the EU AI Act requires machine-readable marking of AI-generated audio, images, video and text, and disclosure of deepfakes. Fines reach EUR 15 million or 3% of worldwide turnover.
EU AI Act, Article 50The US Copyright Office found that purely AI-generated material is not protected, while human selection, arrangement and modification can be. More than 7,000 registration claims have disclaimed AI-generated material.
US Copyright Office, January 2025 report; testimony, May 202669% of creators are concerned about AI being trained on their content without permission.
Adobe Creators’ Toolkit Report, October 2025
Rules now reward creators who can show what was made, by whom, with which tools and when. A structured INDEX record complements platform labels and legal registration; it does not replace them.
What it means for creators
Keep a dated record of each work’s versions, contributors and tools — the evidence the new rules ask for.
What it means for partners
Compliance questions open conversations: helping a client document AI-assisted work is a service clients understand and pay for.
Rules and decisions to know
Dates that changed what creators need to document.
US Copyright Office report on copyrightability
Purely AI-generated material is not protected; human selection, arrangement and modification can be.
Academy rules for the 98th Oscars
Generative AI tools neither help nor harm a film’s chances; judges consider how far a human was at the heart of the authorship.
China’s AI content labelling measures take effect
Visible and metadata labels for AI-generated and synthetic content; removing or forging labels is prohibited.
US Supreme Court declines Thaler v. Perlmutter
The human-authorship requirement for copyright stays in place.
EU AI Act Article 50 applies
Machine-readable marking of AI-generated content and disclosure of deepfakes.
Marking deadline for systems already on the market
Generative AI systems placed on the EU market before August 2026 must comply with the marking duty.
Creators are moving from rented reach to channels they own.
Platform reach is shared and volatile. Direct relationships with fans and buyers are where creators keep the value.
53% of creators say reaching their followers is harder than five years ago; 78% say the algorithm affects what they make.
Patreon, State of Create 2025Patreon has paid creators more than USD 10 billion since 2013 and now pays out more than USD 2 billion a year.
Axios, August 2025The creator economy was about USD 250 billion in 2023 and could approach USD 480 billion by 2027. Only about 4% of 50 million creators earn more than USD 100,000 a year.
Goldman Sachs, April 2023ForecastTraffic from generative AI to US retail sites rose 693% year on year in the 2025 holiday season. AI agents could orchestrate USD 3–5 trillion of global consumer retail by 2030.
Adobe Analytics, January 2026; McKinsey, October 2025 (forecast)
An owned site with a works library, services and payments is the asset a creator keeps when algorithms change. As discovery moves to AI assistants, sites and records that machines can read become part of being found.
What it means for creators
Put works, services and payments on your own domain, linked to their records, so people and agents can find and buy directly.
What it means for partners
Setting up and running a creator’s own channel is ongoing work — the basis of annual relationships rather than one-off sales.
Technology reaches small buyers through partners.
Most technology spending — and most small-business spending — is delivered by partners who advise, set up and support.
70% of worldwide IT spending in 2025 is partner-delivered, out of a USD 5.44 trillion total.
Canalys, November 2024Forecast79% of small and mid-sized business IT spending in 2026 flows through partners — USD 1.87 trillion of USD 2.38 trillion — and 81% in Asia Pacific.
Omdia via Channel Dive, February 2026Forecast67% of partner and channel leaders expect partner-transacted revenue to grow above the previous year.
Forrester, The State of Partner Ecosystems in 2025
Creators and small studios buy the way small businesses do: they need advice, setup and support close to them. A partner network is the established route to reach them; partners earn on the service they add, not only on the product.
What it means for creators
A local partner sets up records and sites, answers questions in your language and handles renewals.
What it means for partners
You bring the relationship and the service; CHANNEL provides the products, prices, fulfilment and records behind them.
Hong Kong and Asia Pacific.
Public funding for film and creative IP, an AI infrastructure push and the fastest-growing regional market.
Hong Kong’s 2026–27 Budget injects more than HK$9 billion in total into CreateSmart and the Film Development Fund.
HKSAR Government, Budget 2026–27, February 2026AI and generative AI spending in Asia Pacific is projected to grow from USD 73 billion in 2024 to USD 370 billion in 2029 (38.4% a year).
IDC, April 2026Forecast88% of employees at about 800 surveyed Hong Kong companies use AI tools in their daily work.
Hong Kong Productivity Council, October 2025Asia-Pacific box office is projected to grow from USD 13.8 billion in 2025 to about USD 17 billion in 2030, the fastest of any region.
PwC Global Entertainment & Media Outlook 2026–2030Forecast
Hong Kong combines sustained support for film and creative IP with investment in AI, inside the fastest-growing AI market. That makes it a credible base for a creator-services network facing Asia and the world.
What it means for creators
Work with partners who know both international festivals and Asian markets.
What it means for partners
Asia-Pacific partners serve the region where both AI spending and audiences are growing fastest.
How to read these figures
- Figures are taken from published sources available up to October 2026. Each names its publisher and date.
- Forecasts are third-party projections. They are not CHANNEL estimates, and nothing here promises sales, earnings or timelines to partners.
- Survey results reflect each survey’s sample and may not represent all creators or markets.
- INDEX records are structured index records and a basis for due diligence. They are not copyright registration or a legal instrument.
Sources
- Adobe, Creators’ Toolkit Report, 28 October 2025
- Adobe Analytics, holiday shopping season results, 7 January 2026
- Associated Press, AI film festival report, 6 June 2025
- Axios, Patreon and the creator economy, 5 August 2025
- Canalys, IT spending forecasts 2025, November 2024
- Cyberspace Administration of China, Measures for Labelling AI-Generated and Synthetic Content, Q&A, 14 March 2025
- European Union, Artificial Intelligence Act, Article 50
- Forrester, The State of Partner Ecosystems in 2025
- Fortune, Runway AI Film Festival, 3 May 2024
- Goldman Sachs, The creator economy could approach half-a-trillion dollars by 2027, 19 April 2023
- Grand View Research, AI Video Generator Market report, 2026
- HKSAR Government, The 2026–27 Budget, 25 February 2026
- Hong Kong Productivity Council, AI Readiness in Workplace Survey 2025, 23 October 2025
- IDC, Asia/Pacific AI and GenAI spending forecast, 13 April 2026
- Kuaishou Technology, Kling AI announcement, 13 January 2026; Q1 2026 results, 27 May 2026
- McKinsey & Company, The agentic commerce opportunity, 17 October 2025
- Omdia via Channel Dive, SME IT spending through partners, 12 February 2026
- Patreon, State of Create 2025, via TechCrunch, 19 February 2025
- PwC, Global Entertainment & Media Outlook 2026–2030, 22 June 2026
- Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, rules for the 98th Oscars, 21 April 2025
- The Astana Times, Astana AI Film Festival entries, 15 September 2026
- TVBEurope, Google Flow videos, 19 August 2025
- US Copyright Office, Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, Part 2, 29 January 2025; testimony of the Register, 12 May 2026
- Mayer Brown, Supreme Court denies review in AI authorship case, 11 March 2026
Turn these shifts into a practice.
CHANNEL partners advise creators, set up INDEX records and NODE sites, and keep them running year after year.