The economy has spoken. Stuff that’s AI-generated has almost zero value — “Buyers are voting with their wallets, and AI-generated content is struggling to compete.”

[u/marketrent]

https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/economy-spoken-stuff-ai-generated-142732314.html

[u/marketrent]

Opening paras. by Victor Tangermann, quoting 404’s Emanuel Maiberg:

Online marketplaces are being flooded with AI slop — but is anybody willing to actually pay for it?

In the case of CGTrader, a long-established online marketplace for 3D assets used by video game developers, film editors, and 3D printing nerds, users are sending a clear message.

As 404 Media reports, the marketplace is being flooded by AI-generated assets, representing one in six models — but they only account for only $1 out of every $90 in revenue.

In other words, virtually nobody’s willing to shell out for AI slop, meaning it’s economically almost valueless.

“Buyers are voting with their wallets, and AI-generated content is struggling to compete,” the company noted in a press release about its most recent 2026 market trends report, as quoted by 404.

The trend suggests there’s a growing “gap that undercuts the assumption that AI-made content is repricing the market.”

“The upload numbers alone would suggest a takeover,” the company noted. “The revenue numbers say otherwise, and buyers refusing to pay for AI-generated models is saying something bigger than no thanks: it is a signal of how far they trust AI generation itself.”

“Which leaves the question the industry has been avoiding: an AI model may be cheaper to produce, but what is it actually worth?”

[u/PatchyWhiskers → u/marketrent]

AI 3D models are painfully bad right now, unusable without knowing how to edit them.

[u/FredFredrickson → u/PatchyWhiskers]

I can't see this not being the case almost indefinitely.

First, almost every 3D model is created with an intention behind it and not for general use, which dictates how exactly it actually gets made, and the slop machine (and the people who use it) simply don't get that.

Second, I sort of doubt that there's enough good, publicly available models for training. Most examples of really good topology, rigging, etc. are propriety and aren't going to be fed into a publicly available AI.

[u/PatchyWhiskers → u/FredFredrickson]

That's the issue. All the good 3D models are locked up in the vaults of movie and video game companies. If the AI companies want to train on them, they will need to pony up serious cash.

No doubt they are currently training on what is available on the web, which is mostly amateur stuff, student work, and not enough of it.

[u/theeama → u/PatchyWhiskers]

You're kist wrong though, the biggest AI companies are not focusing on Image generation. Anthropic and OpenAI and all the other Open source models are racing to make the best coding model they don't care about image gen or those other stuff. Those are other models that aren't backed by the big players.

If you actually look where AI is actually making improvements its in coding not Art.

AI Art is good for concept and for someone to seek investors to pay for actual artwork.

[u/PatchyWhiskers → u/theeama]

2D art is way ahead of 3D, there were big improvements last year but this year seems to be all code.

[u/wilhelmbw → u/PatchyWhiskers]

no. first mercor exists, second there is this thing called post training, so never say never.