031 - A PERSPECTIVE on Fiverr's new AI offering Fiverr GO.
The OPINION
Fiverr has finally shown its hand in the ‘we have AI’ race. Let’s see where this goes.
Having worked freelance on and off throughout my career, I have always applauded Fiverr's concept of helping freelancers find work and create a legitimate business from their skills. From its start to where it is now, the platform has grown tremendously in good and bad ways–don't get me started on the quality control.
Here we are today, and Fiverr has announced its new AI-powered product, Fiverr Go. Fiverr Go lets freelancers train models on their own style of work and then sell the usage of those models to their clients. Additionally, the service allows freelancers to create AI "agents" to handle client interactions.
I find this all fascinating, especially with the platform's big payment structure that allows freelancers to make money off of models trained on their creative work. Yet, I cannot help but think that this will become another dumping ground for a glut of low-quality and cheap freelancers. Let me correct myself, cheap AI models.
Fiverr has gotten better at making it easier to find better-quality talent. However, with the introduction of user-generated models, you can expect the floodgates to open with just run-of-the-mill models that can tarnish the good that AI can actually do. One can imagine the time it will take to sift through the models to find something worth your time.
I do hope they incorporate a solid filtering system and overall tighter quality control once the platform fully rolls out. As it stands with the current website preview, scrolling through the AI models is cumbersome as there is no organizational structure in place. So you are left to doom-scroll through the current pickings.
Outside of the current user experience, the automation of client interactions can be useful, but I'm curious to know how clients will feel being responded to by a bot. They've obviously thought about this by letting freelancers have full control of bot interactions at any time. But it begs the question, will clients feel cheapened by the experience, knowing they don't have the freelancer's full attention?
There is a dynamic I've experienced throughout my career where direct human-to-human interaction with a client brings a level of assurance and quality to the overall experience. This aspect of the relationship is what mostly brings clients back. Just read a few of the good freelancer reviews, and you'll see they tend to mention the relationship. It's something I believe bot automation can have a negative impact on. Most—if not all freelance gigs are intimate relationships and not mass-scale operations, which would need bots to handle high volumes of client inquiries.
One thing is for sure, Fiverr has finally shown its hand in the "we have AI" race. Let's see where this goes.
Good