Beyond Content: Where Value Accrues in the $1.4 Trillion Creative Economy

Creative services exports reached $1.4 trillion in 2022, a 29% increase since 2017, while creative goods exports totaled $713 billion. The sector supports nearly 50 million jobs worldwide and contributes approximately 3% of global GDP.

The creative economy is no longer a niche cultural sector. It has become a meaningful component of global economic activity and an increasingly important source of growth, innovation, and intellectual capital.

Yet the most important investment question may not be how large the creative economy becomes. It may be where value ultimately accumulates within it.

In an era of information abundance, attention has become one of the world's scarcest resources. Platforms are built around capturing it, businesses compete for it, and consumer behavior is increasingly shaped by it. Organizations that consistently command attention and convert it into engagement, loyalty, and economic outcomes are building powerful competitive advantages.

However, history suggests that some of the most durable and scalable value is often created by the infrastructure that enables industries to grow.

The railway era transformed commerce, but infrastructure owners became critical economic enablers. Telecommunications reshaped global connectivity, while the networks themselves evolved into strategic assets. The rise of the internet created immense value not only through content and commerce, but also through the infrastructure that powered digital participation. Mobile technology created entirely new ecosystems around platforms such as Apple and the App Store. More recently, the rapid growth of artificial intelligence has generated significant value not only in AI applications, but also in semiconductors, cloud infrastructure, data platforms, and developer tools.

Early indicators suggest a similar pattern may be emerging within the creative economy.

While creators, brands, media companies, and entertainment businesses generate attention, value is increasingly being created across the infrastructure that enables the ecosystem to operate at scale. AI-powered creative tools, rights-management platforms, digital distribution networks, analytics engines, creator technologies, monetization systems, and intellectual property infrastructure are becoming critical layers within the creative economy value chain.

This trend reflects a broader shift taking place across the global economy. According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), investment in intangible assets—including software, data, research and development, brands, design, and organizational capital—continues to grow faster than investment in many traditional asset categories. Research from WIPO and Ocean Tomo points to a broader shift in value creation, with intangible assets playing an increasingly significant role in corporate growth, competitiveness, and market valuation.

The implications are also evident in public markets. Ocean Tomo's long-term research on corporate market value has demonstrated the growing importance of intangible assets in leading public companies, reflecting an economy increasingly driven by intellectual capital rather than physical capital.

Recent market activity reinforces this broader direction. Goldman Sachs projects the global creator population will grow from approximately 67 million in 2025 to more than 100 million by 2030, as creator-led advertising, commerce, subscriptions, and AI-enabled business models continue to gain share. Institutional capital is also accelerating: TPG and Creative Artists Agency (CAA) announced a platform backed by an initial US$250 million commitment to acquire and scale creator businesses, while Accenture Song's acquisition of Whalar highlights the growing strategic importance of creator-led marketing and social commerce. Together, these developments suggest that the creative economy is increasingly attracting long-term strategic investment and institutional attention.

This perspective aligns with broader efforts by countries such as the UAE to strengthen the ecosystems, talent pools, and enabling infrastructure that support innovation, creativity, and intellectual capital formation. As the role of knowledge-based industries continues to expand, the ability to build and attract intangible assets is becoming an increasingly important driver of long-term competitiveness.

The creative economy should therefore be viewed as more than a sector. It is a lens through which broader shifts in value creation become visible.

The question is no longer whether the creative economy matters. Recent market activity and long-term investment trends suggest that it does. The more important question is where value will ultimately accrue—and whether investors are positioned in the layer where long-term advantage is being built.