Inside the big business of the creator economy, with the agents making it happen
Inside the big business of the creator economy, with the agents making it happen
深入创作者经济的商业核心：对话幕后推手
Ali Berman and Raina Penchansky, the co-heads of UTA’s Creators division, on helping human creators in the age of AI. 联合人才经纪公司（UTA）创作者部门联席主管 Ali Berman 与 Raina Penchansky 谈如何在 AI 时代助力人类创作者。
by Nilay Patel | Jul 6, 2026, 2:30 PM UTC 作者：Nilay Patel | 2026年7月6日，世界标准时间下午2:30
We’ve got another special episode of Decoder today, recorded at the Cannes Lions advertising festival in the South of France. I’m talking with Ali Berman and Raina Penchansky, who run the Creators division at United Talent Agency. 今天我们带来《Decoder》的另一期特别节目，录制于法国南部的戛纳国际创意节。我采访了联合人才经纪公司（UTA）创作者部门的负责人 Ali Berman 和 Raina Penchansky。
UTA is an enormous talent agency. Half the people you’ve ever heard speak or perform or who show up anywhere have UTA agents representing them. For full disclosure, that includes me! UTA handled the sale of the forthcoming Decoder book. Which means I paid them money, making this a reverse conflict of interest. Now you know. UTA 是一家规模庞大的经纪公司。你所听说过的、见过表演的或在任何场合露面的人中，有一半是由 UTA 的经纪人代理的。在此先做个披露：我也在其中！UTA 负责了我即将出版的《Decoder》一书的销售事宜。这意味着我付钱给他们，这构成了一种“反向利益冲突”。现在你们知道了。
Anyhow, that has nothing to do with Ali and Raina, whose Creators division represents some of the biggest creators and influencers in the world — stars as diverse as Charli D’Amelio and Markiplier, Kai Cenat and Emma Chamberlain, Alex Cooper and Alix Earle. 总之，这与 Ali 和 Raina 无关，她们的创作者部门代理着全球一些最顶尖的创作者和网红——包括 Charli D’Amelio、Markiplier、Kai Cenat、Emma Chamberlain、Alex Cooper 和 Alix Earle 等风格迥异的明星。
So I really wanted to know how Raina and Ali identify up-and-coming talent, how they work with that talent to build durable business, and what the machinations of being a top creator actually look like — after all, all of these folks are running multimillion-dollar businesses with several different revenue lines. You’ll hear Ali and Raina talk directly about what it takes to build those businesses, what kinds of deals they strike, and how it’s all very different than the traditional Hollywood model, where your agent just takes a cut. 我非常想了解 Raina 和 Ali 是如何发掘潜力新星的，她们如何与这些人才合作建立持久的业务，以及成为顶级创作者背后的运作机制究竟是什么样的——毕竟，这些人都在经营着拥有多种收入来源、价值数百万美元的企业。你将听到 Ali 和 Raina 直接谈论建立这些业务所需的条件、她们达成的交易类型，以及这一切与传统的“经纪人只抽成”的好莱坞模式有何不同。
Here, UTA is helping creators literally launch products — and it’s fascinating that the stars of today are going from making media to making products of their own. Not all of them can do it, so I wanted to know how Raina and Ali help their clients make the jump and what makes them successful at it. 在这里，UTA 正在帮助创作者真正地推出产品——令人着迷的是，今天的明星们正从制作媒体内容转向打造自己的产品。并非所有人都能做到这一点，所以我很想知道 Raina 和 Ali 是如何帮助客户完成这一跨越，以及是什么让他们在此过程中取得成功。
Of course, we also talked about AI, and platforms, both of which seem like destabilizing forces for the entire creator ecosystem. I think you’ll find Ali and Raina to be refreshingly chill about it all — even though they represent some VTubers of their own. 当然，我们也谈到了 AI 和平台，这两者似乎都对整个创作者生态系统构成了不稳定因素。我想你会发现 Ali 和 Raina 对此持有一种令人耳目一新的冷静态度——尽管她们自己也代理着一些虚拟主播（VTubers）。
Raina Penchansky, Ali Berman. You are the co-heads of the Creators division at United Talent Agency. Welcome to Decoder. Raina Penchansky，Ali Berman。你们是联合人才经纪公司（UTA）创作者部门的联席主管。欢迎来到《Decoder》。
Ali Berman: Thank you. Ali Berman： 谢谢。
Raina Penchansky: Thanks for having us. Raina Penchansky： 谢谢邀请。
AB: I’m going into my 16th year at UTA. I’ve only ever worked at a talent agency, for better or for worse. I started my career at another agency, then after a few years, moved over to UTA in a very Jerry McGuire meets Entourage-esque moment and worked on the more traditional literary side of the business. But I was in love with the internet and what the internet was at the time, which was very blog-centric. Self-discovery was really up to you. You didn’t have algorithms feeding you. It was obviously a very different era. AB： 我在 UTA 即将进入第 16 个年头。无论好坏，我一直都在经纪公司工作。我的职业生涯始于另一家公司，几年后，我以一种非常像《甜心先生》（Jerry McGuire）遇上《明星伙伴》（Entourage）的方式加入了 UTA，从事更传统的文学业务。但我热爱互联网，以及当时的互联网形态——那是一个以博客为中心的时代。自我发现完全取决于你自己，没有算法在喂养你。那显然是一个非常不同的时代。
RP: I was one of the cofounders of Digital Brand Architects (DBA) 16 years ago, before Instagram had even launched. I came from a traditional marketing background. What I was drawn to in terms of seeing the bloggers that Ali referenced, the bloggers at the time were people who were building these communities directly with their audience. I’d come from fashion and marketing and I was used to the top-down relationship with the consumer, and it was so exciting to see at the time all these street style women who were building this relationship with their audience and who were essentially the next generation of editors and the next generation of media properties and they just didn’t know it yet. RP： 16 年前，在 Instagram 甚至还没发布的时候，我就是 Digital Brand Architects (DBA) 的联合创始人之一。我有着传统的营销背景。吸引我的是 Ali 所提到的那些博主，当时的博主是直接与受众建立社区的人。我来自时尚和营销领域，习惯了自上而下的消费者关系，当时看到这些街头风格的女性与受众建立联系，她们本质上是下一代的编辑和下一代的媒体资产，而她们自己当时还不知道这一点，这让我感到非常兴奋。