Protecting creator voices from unauthorized AI training

This article is a part of Startup Spotlight, a series that features young, up-and-coming startups.

Photo credit: Sparkonomy

At India’s first YouTube FanFest, Guneet Singh watched a stadium erupt for creators. He realized these individuals had audience connections that rivaled traditional celebrities. He teamed up with Megha Thareja Tyagi and Vipasha Joshi to launch Sparkonomy.

😟 Problem

Brands increasingly rely on AI chat tools to shortlist creators for campaigns. A wrong description can cost an individual work before a conversation even begins. Sparkonomy ran an AI misrepresentation study using 50,000 queries across five major models.

Fewer than 1% of the 10,000 creators tested were described accurately by all five models. Furthermore, a creator’s face or voice can be used to train AI models without their consent. Independent creators lack the legal resources to manage their digital identity.

💡 Solution

Sparkonomy operates the Open Creator Graph to give individuals a free public record. Creators can use this page to consolidate their cross-platform identities. 

The platform offers several core features, including:

• Traffic-light permissions allow creators to greenlight, restrict, or prohibit AI usage.
• The platform publishes machine-readable choices for search engines and AI systems.
• Audience figures are pulled directly from official platform APIs and labeled as verified.
• Issued consent certificates enter a tamper-evident log via an EU-compliant timestamp service.

Image credit: Sparkonomy

📊 Market size

An estimated 300 million creators operate worldwide. These individuals earn a combined US$80 billion a year. The graph is open to all of them with no minimum follower requirements.

🤝 Team

• Guneet Singh. Co-founder and CEO. He previously built search, Android, and YouTube ad businesses across Google, Microsoft, and Samsung.
• Megha Thareja Tyagi. Co-founder and COO. She formerly launched PayPal’s domestic payments business in India and spent seven years at Google.
• Vipasha Joshi. Co-founder and global head of creator business. She spent nearly four years building Jellysmack’s India operations.

🚀 Traction

• Sparkonomy launched Open Creator Graph in September 2026 with one million available creator records.
• Users across nine countries claimed records during the launch week.
• Large AI and search crawlers are actively visiting the platform.
• The startup is a Gemini early-access program partner and joined Google for Startups.

🏆 Competition

Modash and HypeAuditor sell creator discovery data to brands through software subscriptions. Sparkonomy differentiates itself by making public identities and AI permissions free to read. The platform also integrates machine-readable opt-outs for text and data mining.

💰 Financials

🚩 Risks