I’m 19, and I’ve watched more than 200 brands quietly give up on influencers

A 19-year-old founder of a UGC marketplace serving over 200 brands reports that the traditional influencer model is collapsing because single, costly posts no longer deliver measurable returns. Brands now fund dozens of creator-made videos, test them as paid ads, and use the resulting data to iterate, a workflow that AI agents can soon automate end-to-end.