In this conversation, Sapir Hadad, Executive Director of AI Innovation at Fiverr, outlines the company’s dual-pronged approach: deploying AI to streamline work while equipping its community of freelancers with tools that enhance rather than replace their expertise.
What is Fiverr’s AI strategy right now?
Fiverr is an AI-first company that’s becoming leaner, faster, with a modern AI-focused tech infrastructure. Our AI strategy is centred on helping us deliver higher-quality outcomes, and enable our community to achieve more on the platform.
Earlier this year, we created an AI tool to directly benefit its users – the Personal Assistant. As a business, we have taken several learnings from this effort, notably the power of people in bringing out the best in our AI efforts as we continue to evolve the platform.
Our strategy is focused on two key areas. First, our AI-native expertise to transform our internal operations through intelligent automation. Second, our AI-powered experiences enable both freelancers and buyers with advanced, intuitive AI tools that make their experience simpler, faster, and more rewarding. This includes using AI for our own brand campaigns, seen most recently in the internet’s “AI punching-bag”, Garry.
Our ultimate ambition is to build an operating system for the future of work, where humans and machines collaborate to combine human judgement with technological assistance, creating a more dynamic and effective way of working.
Are you offering any AI products to freelancers?
Freelancers have access to a Personal Assistant, an AI-powered tool that helps them manage pre-order communication with new clients. These assistants have helped achieve conversion rates of up to 57 percent from inquiry to sale, demonstrating that technology, when applied thoughtfully, can strengthen human connection rather than diminish it.
We are also investing significantly in AI-driven precision matching to help clients find the right talent more efficiently, while ensuring freelancers are connected to projects that truly align with their skills.
Fiverr has made a major advance in putting forward its freelancers as ‘AI Experts’ – what’s the incentive behind this?
Our freelancers are already rewriting the AI playbook – making AI a core capability within their service offering, rather than just a trendy feature. We want to continue to empower them with the right tools, visibility and credibility to continue on this path – scaling their work, building businesses and developing teams of their own.
Trust and high standards are central to this vision. Clients increasingly seek professionals who not only understand how to use AI responsibly but also recognise that, while tools are widely available, it is the human element that truly enhances quality, creativity, and strategy.
Have you experienced any backlash from freelancers for this? What is the overall freelancer sentiment towards AI?
Change naturally brings questions, and that is to be expected within any business. Overall, however, the sentiment within our freelancer community has been highly positive and forward-looking. Many freelancers view AI as a competitive advantage – our recent International Freelancer Day survey found 76 percent of freelancers are already using AI tools, and 64 percent said it makes them more productive. It is a means to reach more clients, complete projects more efficiently, and expand their businesses.
We make it a priority to listen carefully to community feedback, ensuring that every AI innovation we develop reflects the real needs of freelancers and continues to strengthen their value. Everything we do is focused on helping freelancers increase their income potential, productivity, and creativity.
How do you vet how freelancers use AI so that quality of work isn’t compromised?
We ensure that AI never compromises quality by combining large-scale data on freelancer performance and buyer satisfaction, with human judgement. Quality is continuously assessed through customer reviews, reply-time, delivery standards, and repeat purchase rates. Our platform also integrates ethical AI practices to maintain trust, fairness, and integrity. We’re building a new benchmark for trustworthy, high-quality AI-assisted work on Fiverr.
The guiding philosophy is straightforward: AI can elevate the average, but only humans can create the exceptional.
How will you get around the proliferation of ‘AI slop’ or AI content that looks the same, but from different freelancers?
That is a great question, and one we are actively working to navigate. We currently have a system that allows freelancers to indicate their use of AI on their gig pages. We also encourage them to communicate this upfront with customers to align on expectations and ensure quality. This helps customers understand how the freelancer integrates AI into their workflow while maintaining their own expertise and creative direction.
What creative freelancer roles are using AI the most? Are there any roles using AI in a surprising way?
Freelancers are using AI to script, voice, edit and animate videos and making production faster, and cheaper.
What does the future of the freelancer space look like?
The truth is, the AI landscape is moving so fast that predicting even a few months ahead can feel impossible. The future of the freelancer space is structured, tech-enabled, and self-directed. Freelancers are building disciplined, sustainable careers defined by flexibility and control.
We envision a future in which freelancers do more than simply use AI. They will own it, train it, and benefit directly from it. AI agents will act as genuine collaborators, evolving alongside freelancers rather than functioning as static tools.
For this reason, we are focused on building a strong and adaptable foundation, along with a team capable of keeping pace with change and leading it. Freelancing remains a constant, and so does AI. Continuous learning is essential and adaptability determines survival, which is exactly what Fiverr and our freelancers are doing. They are becoming multi-talented creators who can move fluidly across a wide range of disciplines.
