TikTok has redefined what it means to be a content consumer and producer today. With nearly 2 billion users worldwide spending more time on TikTok than other social media apps, the platform has earned the ‘social media giant’ moniker.
The land of never-ending dance battles, viral challenges, and lip dubbing is now harnessing artificial intelligence to turbocharge the platform. Let’s break down TikTok’s latest suite of AI tools and what it means for its users.
Since generative AI has made it its life’s mission to completely overhaul the content creation process, social media platforms have refused to take it lying down.
From Facebook’s suite of AI tools for advertisers, to Instagram’s AI image creation and editing tools, Snapchat’s conversational AI, and even X’s Grok, a ‘humorous AI search assistant,’ everyone is taking their piece of the pie.
And TikTok is not one to be left behind. This June, Tiktok announced in a blog post the launch of Symphony, , the platform’s new suite of creative solutions powered by generative AI.
Symphony is made up of four pillars: Symphony Assistant, Symphony Creative Studio, Symphony Avatars, and Ad Manager.
What started as TikTok’s Creative Assistant, designed to help users find inspiration, discover trends and accompany them throughout their creative process, has now evolved into Symphony Assistant.
It performs the same functions Creative Assistant does, but at an even greater scale.
If there’s one thing TikTok isn’t lacking, it’s repositories of creative data — and this is just the thing its AI assistant needs to meet wide-ranging creative needs.
See my sample query and the response below.
Query: I am a content marketer struggling to go viral on TikTok. What kind of content can I make in a month to get me to my first 500 followers?
It gives a long list of content ideas sufficient for a content marketer truly trying to grow on TikTok. Not just ideas too, but also what trends it would fit nicely with, the best hashtags for each post and even a unique selling point for each idea.
You might be thinking, “This looks like something ChatGPT could produce.” That’s true until you get to the most interesting part:video references. And it doesn’t just put a link there that redirects you to the video on the TikTok app.
Instead, videos from real creators related to your query are seamlessly embedded into the response. This integration allows you to view and interact with the content directly within the platform, making the experience more immersive and practical. Potential game-changer.
Short, engaging videos are the core of TikTok’s value proposition.
While the end product can be just one minute, these videos often take creators anywhere from 30 minutes to hours to film, edit, and publish.
The Symphony Creative Studio is designed to speed up the production process of video content like product videos, avatar narrations and dubbed translations, with a generative AI feature that creates ready-to-use videos for ad campaigns.
To test this tool, I created a business account for a pretend shirt retailing business for men called Sammy’s Tees.
Sammy Tee’s final video isn’t perfect. The lip sync is slightly off and there are limited avatar editing options — but it‘s a pretty good start for a tool in beta testing.
As a market projected to be worth 270 billion dollars by 2030, digital avatars are quickly becoming a cornerstone of virtual interactions and online branding.
TikTok’s Symphony Digital Avatars tool, in particular, allows users to create unique and lifelike AI-generated personas that they can use in their videos.
These avatars are all created from video footage of real paid actors that have licensed their likeness for commercial use. Not only do users get to use these avatars in various lifelike environments and postures, they can also choose the voice, accent and language most suited to the narrative.
Currently, users can access either stock or custom avatars, both of which are available in the Symphony Creative Studio. The stock avatars are pre-made and generic, while custom avatars are uniquely designed to represent specific individuals or brands.
French TikToker Lucas Dampeyrou recently told Adage the feature is a massive growth opportunity. Here's how you can leverage it too.
Integrated into TikTok Ads Manager workflow is a set of AI-powered features designed to optimize ad creation, performance, and streamline the entire campaign process.
A majority of respondents in our recent State of AI in Marketing survey agree that AI solutions have had a positive impact on their work. But how exactly will TikTok’s AI tools do this?
With features like Symphony Assistant and Symphony Creative Studio, users can quickly generate creative ideas, scripts, and customizable videos, enabling professional-grade content creation with ease.
This is why content creation remains the popular use case for generative AI, according to our recent State of AI in Marketing survey.
The way these tools are designed, they provide tailored suggestions based on trending topics and user behavior, ensuring content stays relevant and engaging.
The Symphony Digital Avatars, for instance, allow users to create personalized and lifelike avatars that represent their unique brand or persona. People are also calling them AI or virtual influencers.
A study has found that these avatars, in general, have a ‘positive impact on perceived enjoyment and immersion, both affecting consumer engagement and purchase intention positively.’
The new Symphony features in the TikTok ad workflow will guarantee that creators are releasing campaigns that would scale.
From enhancing video quality to optimizing for campaign effectiveness, creators can expect to receive better ROI on their ad spend.
Most of these tools are still in beta testing and may not be fully available to all users yet, with some features subject to change as TikTok gathers feedback and makes improvements.
By understanding how to leverage these features, you can position yourself to take full advantage of their capabilities as they become more widely accessible, ensuring you stay ahead of the curve and keep your TikTok engagement on lock.