Influencer culture is declining as AI erodes trust in unverified voices, shifting authority toward credentialed experts who pair their knowledge with custom AI models.

Dr. Becky Kennedy, a clinical psychologist, sold over 100,000 subscriptions to her Good Inside platform—which includes 24/7 access to an AI model trained exclusively on her knowledge—grossing $34 million last year, after raising $10 million.

Smaller AI models trained on narrower, domain-specific knowledge (such as a clinician's lifetime of writing and speaking) are outperforming frontier models on specialized tasks and enable a distinct voice and perspective, unlike large generative models.

A recent Gartner study found that half of consumers now actively prefer companies that avoid generative AI in their marketing, signaling a shift away from the 'AI slop' of processed information toward verifiable expertise.