For most Nigerian content creators, staying online is often the easiest part of the job. The real struggle is happening in the background. Creators grapple with unreliable data connections and the difficult task of tailoring global technology to local audiences. For years, the solution was simply to try harder, but in 2025, things have changed. This year, artificial intelligence (AI) has moved from the playground of the curious to the engine room of the productive.
With limited infrastructure, rising data costs, and fierce competition for attention, efficiency is no longer an option, but a necessity for survival and growth. AI offers creators a practical way to save time, reduce costs, and compete on the global stage without expanding their teams or budgets. These tools are reshaping the way Nigerian creators keep their jobs, scale their output, and maintain their presence in an increasingly crowded creator economy.
I spoke to some of Nigeria’s top content creators, including Fisayo Fosudo, Mercy Thaddeus, and Akunne Emmanuel, to understand how they’re integrating AI into their creative workflows to improve efficiency and outcomes, and how they’re refusing to hand over creative decisions to machines.
Script and narrative architecture
The most immediate impact of AI this year is the end of “blank page” syndrome, a common challenge that leaves creators staring at a blank page or screen as they struggle to transform their ideas into structured content. For many creators, the process of going from raw ideas to structured stories has been shortened from hours to minutes.
Technology creator Akunne Emmanuel, who explains product designs to his audience on his BuildWithDudu Instagram page, often begins his creative process with a rough personal script. Use AI to adjust the angle so your message flows naturally.
“Once you have an idea, you can create a strong first-pass outline in under 10 minutes, then spend your time refining your tone and insight instead of staring at a blank page,” Emanuel says.
Mercy Thaddeus, an AI content creator who breaks down artificial intelligence for her audience and is known as Mercythaddeus_ on Instagram, says she uses Gemini to “refine her scripts.”
Improving scripts with Gemini is part of a broader change in the way creative work is produced around the world. Generative AI tools are increasingly being used not only for grammar and tone, but also for structuring ideas, tightening narratives, and speeding up production cycles. The study surveyed more than 16,000 creators in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, South Korea, Japan, India, and Australia about the attitudes, behaviors, and expectations that are shaping the future of creative work and the creator economy, according to research published by Adobe MAX.
The survey found that the majority of creators are now incorporating AI into their workflows, especially in writing, editing, and ideation, and see these tools not as a replacement for human creativity, but as collaborators to help them work faster and push their ideas further.
TechCabal content creator Ayodeji Aboderin leveraged AI to build what he calls a “content engine” in 2025. By feeding a framework into a model like ChatGPT, you can break down complex technical topics into simple, relevant stories. Aboderin explains the process change: “It makes it much easier to break down ideas and turn them into simple ways that audiences can understand.”
Technical prototyping and visualization
In a market where high-quality stock footage and dedicated design teams can be prohibitively expensive, creators are leveraging AI to show as well as tell. Beyond the written word, AI has become a silent partner in the creation of visual assets and technical demonstrations.
Thaddeus uses his background in software engineering to transform the way products are introduced using AI coding assistants.
“We know how to make products, but it takes time and often requires a team,” she says. “It used to take a full day of coding to build a landing page or a simple tool. Now, with our AI coding assistant, we can create functional prototypes and clean UIs in about 20 minutes. This allows us to show rather than just tell in video.”
Aboderin says he takes a similar approach to visual storytelling and no longer has to spend hours scouring sites like Unsplash. He currently generates bespoke visual assets to illustrate specific stories.
“As opposed to looking for images and visuals that tell a story, it’s easy to visualize using AI. You don’t have to go looking for them, you just generate them from scratch,” he says.
research and deep exploration
Research has traditionally been the most time-consuming part of the creative cycle, but in 2025, AI agents will take over the heavy lifting of data collection.
Fisayo Fosudo uses tools like Gemini to explore reviews of famous gadgets from different angles. Rather than relying on AI for the “news” itself, he uses it to find ways to “attack” topics and discover which elements of new devices are most relevant to viewers.
“We’re doing our own research. Rather than relying on AI to say, ‘Here’s the news,’ we’re just using[AI]to explore different angles on how to approach things,” Fosdo explains.
Aboderin takes this a step further by deploying AI agents to scan for patterns and repeated conversations across the web. “You can automate that process and send agents out on errands to learn about it while you do other things,” he says.
However, there is a caveat to this efficiency. Fosudo cautions that AI-driven investigations often present outdated information as current fact. “The website may have an article from 2003, but the date[of the AI-investigated article]is 2025, so I don’t rely on the information given.”
Strategic outreach and monetization
The influence of AI is also permeating the business side of content creation, particularly the way creators manage their professional relationships. While AI won’t replace the networks needed to land big deals, it has significantly reduced the friction of communication. Creators are now using AI tools to draft outreach emails to brands, generate personalized pitch decks, and condense long email threads for faster follow-ups. And by leveraging AI to take meeting notes, refine proposals, and coordinate the same proposal across multiple platforms, some companies are now able to spend more time building relationships and negotiating deals rather than tackling repetitive administrative tasks.
Emanuel said they are using AI to build outreach and follow-up, adding, “AI does not replace relationship building, but it supports relationship building by removing friction and delay in calculating response.”
Thaddeus has found that AI can overcome writer’s block when writing cold emails and proposals, ensuring that his outreach is “professional and clear.”
Indirectly, this efficiency improves monetization. Thaddeus says that by spending less time scripting and coding, he has more time to build actual assets. “These projects are building my portfolio and attracting high-value clients.”
Gaps in the Nigerian context
Despite the increased efficiency, there is a clear consensus among creators. The thing is, AI isn’t 100% accurate.
As this technology spreads across creative, academic, and professional fields, concerns about AI accuracy, bias, and hallucinations are growing around the world. Large language models are known to produce reliable but inaccurate output, obscure facts, and reproduce gaps in the data they were trained on. These weaknesses have limitations because a creator’s credibility is determined by their authenticity and relevance. The margin for error is even narrower in Nigeria, where context, timing, and cultural specificity matter.
“AI usually doesn’t understand the Nigerian context and exaggerates it,” Emmanuel said. “Authenticity and local relevance still come from lived experience.”
Thaddeus is vocal about the fact that he will never use AI for local trends. (AI) models are often illusionary or outdated when it comes to hyperlocal situations. ” She says she still relies on X and local news blogs to find out what’s really happening on the ground.
Emanuel echoes this sentiment, pointing out that AI systems trained on global data often miss cultural context.
“Most AI systems are trained on global data, which means they don’t naturally understand local nuances, timing, and cultural context, especially in a market like Nigeria. Those gaps require deliberate human judgment. Without that, content sounds accurate but disconnected. The real work is learning where AI can help and where it can mislead,” Emmanuel says.
The disconnect arising from the use of AI has led to a human-first research model in which creators like Thaddeus do the heavy lifting by hand and use AI only to refine the grammar of facts they have already verified.
human boundaries
Looking ahead to 2026, the dividing line for Nigerian creators is that AI cannot recreate an individual’s voice or unique personality.
Fosudo is particularly adamant about the “creepyness” of AI in certain commercial contexts, insisting that the human element is non-negotiable. “It’s weird when you see an ad for food and the food is AI.[Also]if a skin care brand is doing[advertising]they shouldn’t be using AI[facials],” he says.
Thaddeus and Emmanuel conclude that the connection with the audience is built on trust, which is fundamentally a human transaction.
As Thaddeus says, “AI can give you facts, but it can’t give you perspective. My experiences and personal opinions about the industry are things that AI can’t replicate.”
In Nigeria’s creative space, AI is the engine, but creators are firmly in the driver’s seat.
