AI is the 'best business partner' says youngest self-made female billionaire

Lucy Guo, founder and CEO of Passes, wants to turn content creators into millionaires. The 30 year old recently became a billionaire in her own right, though it's “all on paper” as she told Forbes right before they crowned her the youngest self-made female billionaire in the world.

Passes is Lucy’s big bet in the creator economy. Speaking to The Mirror, she describes seeing “untapped potential” in the creator monetisation space back in 2020 after falling in with some content creators in Miami.

“I just saw how they could sell anything with an Instagram post or story” recalls Lucy. “I also saw how inconsistent their income could be.”

Her solution to the instability was for creators to monetise directly off their fan base, which would not only give creators direct, consistent income but the means to invest in other interests or business ventures. Ventures that could be passion projects or, as Lucy envisions, potentially large-scale product-based businesses.

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Given Lucy’s significant background in AI, Passes’ approach is decidedly tech-forward compared to other fan subscriber platforms. While the technical approach separates Passes from its competitors, there’s been a lot of scepticism from creators about AI - viewed as both a potential competitor and thief. But Lucy is adamant AI’s utility will become clear.

“When creators realise the benefits of AI, they're going to change their perception and they're going to be very excited about it. But at the moment, there's a lot of fear. And fear prevents you from looking at all the upsides.”

She continues: “The whole world is like ‘AI is going to take over’ and I'm just like ‘no, it's going to be our co-pilot. It's gonna be our best business partner’.”

AI will help content creators post quickly and often - which is key to long-term success according to Lucy. “We've actually noticed our creators that make the most money, they're actually smaller. They have 200, 300,000 followers,” says Lucy. “My hypothesis is that it's because they just churn out more content because it doesn't need to be perfect”.

The question of what matters to fans boils down to speed and community, according to Lucy. “I would say in terms of what everyone wants it's very, very fast customer service - whether the customer service they want is from the creator or from [Passes].”

Lucy also believes that women tend to lean more towards content creation and, simply put: “they're better at it”.

“I think being a content creator requires a lot of empathy and being able to build relationships especially when they're not in person. You're building relationships with your fans digitally. And the traits needed to do that I think women are better at,” she explains.

By Lucy’s estimation, AI will make building those relationships easier and faster because it will free up creator’s time to engage fans and think creatively. But she will need to work on building meaningful relationships with creators to test her bet.

After Passes acquired the competitor site, Fanhouse in 2023, Lucy faced backlash from creators who felt blindsided by the acquisition. Creators found Passes' lack of content guidelines and AI push alarming.

As reported by TechCrunch at the time, some creators grew worried about a tweet of Guo’s in which she stated that Passes was working on technology that could optionally make AI likenesses of creators. Concerns escalated after Twitch streamer Riley Rose pointed out that Passes does not have content guidelines on its website.

“It’s just that [Fanhouse’s] content guidelines are very, very specific,” Guo clarified to TechCrunch. She said that because Fanhouse used Stripe as its payment processor, the company had to be very clear with users about what they can and cannot post. “We do have content guidelines, it’s just more lax," she explained.

Now, convincing creators to embrace AI and bring their fanbase to a new platform - many of whom aren’t accustomed to paying directly for their content - promises to be a tough sell even if Lucy is promising significant returns. And just as with fans, it isn't all about the money for creators.

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