So, TikTok just launched a full-blown AI suite for creators and marketers at Cannes Lions. Not a filter. Not a cute trend. An entire creative engine called Symphony - state-of-the-art generative AI tools - Image to Video, Text to Video, and Showcase Products all with no humans required.

Whether you're an influencer, a brand manager, or someone who just spent an hour on the app instead of doing their actual job, here's what you need to know.

What the hell is Symphony?

Symphony is TikTok’s new AI toolkit. It launched at TikTok World 2024, and it’s made up of four major tools:

Symphony Assistant: helps you write scripts, brainstorm content ideas, and figure out what’s trending. Think ChatGPT, but caffeinated and TikTok-native.
Symphony Creative Studio: an AI video generator that creates TikTok-ready content for you, no ring light required. Includes Image to Video, and Text to Video.
Symphony Digital Avatars: hyper-realistic digital humans that can front your campaigns, smile on cue, and never needing to be asked for revisions. They can hold your products, wear your clothes, showcase your app.. all of it.
Symphony AI Dubbing: automatically translates and dubs your videos in up to 10 languages, so your content goes global even if your passport doesn’t.

Why should you care?

Because this isn’t some fringe beta release. This is TikTok making a play to become the go-to content machine for marketers around the world.

The AI influencer economy is already tipped to hit $6.95 billion this year. Add that to the $24 billion influencer market more broadly, and we’re no longer talking about a trend — this is the new toolkit for content at scale.

And TikTok just built it into their ecosystem.

What it means for brands

If you work in marketing, buckle up. Symphony promises to lower production costs, speed up campaign timelines, and make it easier to test dozens of variations in multiple languages. All without booking a single shoot.

Brands will be able to use AI avatars trained on their existing content or even recreate human creators with permission. Need your top creator to speak Spanish, Hindi, and French for regional campaigns? AI Dubbing can do that. No reshoots. No logistics headaches.

It’s a marketer's dream. But also, a recipe for lazy creative if you’re not careful.

What it means for creators

Here’s where it gets a bit spicy.

AI tools like this are a double-edged sword for influencers. On the one hand, they can speed up editing, boost reach with multilingual content, and even let creators clone themselves to scale their work.

But they also create a world where brands no longer need the human behind the handle. If you’re a creator who’s been riding on pretty content and vibes alone, now’s the time to evolve. Your personality, values, and ability to connect are now your competitive advantage.

The good, the bad, and the deeply weird

The good: Creators who get this early and learn to integrate AI into their content workflow are going to crush it. This will make localisation, collaboration, and scaling content way easier.

The bad: Brands might opt to replace real creators with AI avatars because they’re cheaper and safer. There’s also a risk that campaigns lose that magic spark of real connection.

The weird: We're going to see influencers licensing their likeness to brands and potentially competing with their own avatar. The idea of being in multiple campaigns at once - without actually doing anything - is both exciting and existential.

Final thought

This isn’t about panicking over AI. It’s about levelling up. If you’re a creator, now is the time to get uncomfortably human. Lean into the stuff the robots can’t fake - real opinions, lived experience, and actual connection with your audience.

And if you’re a brand, don’t forget what made TikTok magic in the first place: creativity, humour, culture. Symphony can supercharge your output, but it can’t replace originality.

So use the tools. But don’t lose the plot.