Clayton Jacobs is the CEO and co-founder of CreatorDB, an AI-powered influencer marketing platform based in Taipei, Taiwan. After launching CreatorDB in 2019, he rapidly scaled it into a leading global agency, specializing in connecting Western brands with key Asian content creators.

Under his leadership, CreatorDB has grown to nearly 100 employees representing 14 nationalities and has built proprietary end-to-end influencer analytics and campaign execution solutions. In 2023, Clayton was named to Forbes’ 30 under 30 in Asia within the Media, Marketing, and Advertising category, recognized as a critical voice within the industry that is defining and driving the shifting world of news and content.

You co-founded CreatorDB from Taipei with a team of engineers and data scientists. What sparked the idea, and how has that shaped your approach to influencer marketing?

This all started about six years ago in Taipei, where I co-founded CreatorDB with a fantastic team mostly made up of engineers and data scientists. Our backgrounds were in high-level tech – think neural networks and computer vision. I was looking for a basic mathematical library to run regression modeling. I wanted to use a client’s sales data to scientifically identify their more effective creators, and I couldn’t find a simple tool for that. The fact that something as fundamental as regression modeling – a simple mathematical technique – didn’t exist for this purpose was a real “wow” moment. We built our analysis engine to serve both our internal decision-making and as a product capability for clients, so the same rigor we use in-house directly powers external results.

When we looked at the influencer marketing space, we saw an unmet need and that the industry lacked a basic foundation of scientific rigor. I felt like the industry was focused on superficial metrics like likes or follower counts, which I always thought missed the point of true impact. We wanted to create a foundational data layer that goes much deeper by analyzing audience demographics, content categorization, engagement volatility, and more. We’re essentially solving the need for data-driven decision-making in influencer marketing, something the industry stumbled upon but never truly built.

Influencer marketing is often seen as subjective or trend-driven. How is CreatorDB using data and AI to bring more structure and strategy to the space?

Influencer marketing has a reputation of being a bit like guesswork or gut feeling. At CreatorDB, we’re changing that with AI and data science. We track millions of creators and billions of content pieces daily. Our AI team uses advanced natural language processing, inference modeling, and pattern recognition to analyze this massive dataset. What this means for brands is that influencer selection and campaign optimization aren’t just about vibes anymore; it’s about statistically meaningful insights.

Our AI helps identify the tiniest performance patterns, allowing brands to invest smarter and optimize spend for maximum ROI. We’re really the silent engine behind many influencer strategies that you’d never notice, but the data is doing the heavy lifting.

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You’ve talked about the rise of ‘AI slop:’ mass-produced content flooding social platforms. What should marketers know about the risks of AI-generated video?

There’s a lot of low-quality, mass-produced AI content out there, especially on short-form platforms. The thing brands need to understand is that these platforms (YouTube, TikTok, Instagram) are actively punishing this kind of content now because it harms advertiser trust and watch-time metrics. It’s not just subjective low quality; algorithms are objectively demoting it to protect ad revenue.

Platforms have publicly tightened guidance and enforcement, for example, YouTube has clarified policies around spammy or automated videos and disclosure of synthetic content, so creators who ignore those rules risk reach or demonetization. From a marketer’s perspective, trying to ride the AI slop wave is risky and unlikely to yield meaningful sponsorship value. The better path is for creators using AI as a tool to help with scripting, editing, or ideation, vs. automating the entire creative process. Quality human creativity remains king.

With CreatorDB tracking over 12 million creators and billions of content pieces, what trends are surprising you right now in the creator economy?

One of the most fascinating things right now is how fast micro-trends appear and disappear. We’re not just looking at big, global shifts, but thousands of small micro-trends every day that only apply to narrow creator subsets. For example, a new game update might explode within a particular gaming community, boosting engagement 20% above usual for that segment. Our daily work involves spotting those outliers and helping brands attach sponsorships to timely, relevant content to maximize impact. Content vibes change at lightning speed, so speed and precision in data analysis have never been more important. That’s why we refresh our models and datasets daily, rather than monthly or only on request, so brands can act while the window is open.

What’s your take on virtual influencers, and how do you differentiate between hype and real value in this space?

Virtual influencers are a tricky topic because they often get lumped in with AI influencers, but I like to make a clear distinction. Virtual (or digital) influencers are avatar-based but still heavily curated by humans. There’s human creativity directing everything from content to posts to narratives. For brands, virtual influencers can be quite effective, especially in branding campaigns, since they’re often engaging and consistent. But pure AI influencers, those that try to automate the whole creative process, are usually generating low-value, forgettable content. So, while virtual influencers have real value rooted in human direction, the hype around AI mass-produced content is largely misplaced.

You’ve scaled CreatorDB to a team of 80 with global clients. What’s been the biggest lesson in building a company across borders?

We operate as a global-first, which gives us an edge. Our office-based model, paired with global hiring, lets us tap broader talent without losing the speed and cohesion that come from in-person collaboration. This makes our product more robust and delivers a significant competitive advantage globally.

What advice would you give marketers trying to navigate the explosion of AI tools without getting caught in the hype cycle?

My advice is simple: avoid paying the “celebrity tax” for hype. AI is powerful when used as a creative assistant, but it won’t replace authentic human creativity anytime soon. Brands need to be critical and focus on where AI tools genuinely add efficiency without sacrificing quality or audience connection. There’s a lot of noise and flashy promises in AI right now, so keep your focus on data-driven results and don’t get caught up chasing trends that don’t provide real ROI.

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