Sofia Chiani is perhaps best known as a technology entrepreneur, but she also describes herself as “a creative and a storyteller at heart.”
Chianni, 24, is the co-founder of Fia, an AI-powered shopping startup he launched in April 2025 with his college roommate Phoebe Gates. The two also co-host the business and lifestyle podcast The Burnouts.
Kiani says she’s not worried about AI encroaching on creative work. In fact, she believes creativity is the greatest quality that AI cannot replicate or replace. “Creativity and ingenuity always comes from humans,” she tells CNBC Make It.
Still, Chianni says he’s optimistic that AI can be used to “empower” creative teams. “Teams of one, two, or three people can use AI to improve their productivity so they can actually get much more done than was previously possible,” she says.
In her view, the biggest benefit of AI for creatives is that it can take over the “tedious and time-consuming” parts of their workflows. For example, Chianni said Fire and The Burnout’s content production teams are using AI to “automate” tasks like data collection and content performance analysis, allowing them to spend more time workshopping ideas instead.
“I want the team to stay in the realm of genius,” she says. “They’re really good at coming up with good, interesting, creative ideas for content…I want them to focus on that.”
According to LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky and Chief Economic Opportunity Officer Aneesh Raman, AI can “remix what exists,” while humans can “imagine possibilities that didn’t exist before.” Both say creativity is an irreplaceable skill in the age of AI.
AI could disrupt the labor market, but it could also give creative professionals more room to focus on their unique skills, Yat Siu, co-founder of gaming software and digital asset company Animocha Brands, told CNBC in June. He said his hope is that “we all have the freedom to be creative because while we are truly human, machines will ultimately do what we need to do on that side.”
Gates, co-founder of Phia, shared similar views at the SXSW conference in Austin in March. “People who are highly self-motivated will be able to do more and more things, and they will be able to use AI to basically enhance[their jobs]so they don’t have to do a lot of the manual, arduous tasks that they used to have to do,” she said.
According to Chianni, developing an audience through content creation is a key part of Phia’s growth strategy, and the use of AI helped the team do that.
Three-quarters of digital creators who use AI consider it “essential” to their work, according to Adobe’s 2026 Creator Toolkit Report, based on a survey of more than 16,000 creators around the world. The majority (87%) say creative AI has helped them grow their business or audience, and 63% say creative AI has made them feel more confident in their work.
Kiani and Gates documented the process of starting the company in “The Burnouts,” which has more than 900,000 followers, according to the podcast’s LinkedIn page. “Being able to actually take your audience behind the scenes and have them learn together in real time is much more authentic and fulfilling,” says Kiani, who encourages other entrepreneurs to share more of their processes online.
Doing so with creativity and ingenuity is how you develop an audience that is “genuinely interested in your success,” she says.
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