When tech giant Canva announced its purchase of one of Australia’s best known AI startups, Leonardo, artificial intelligence YouTuber and influencer Matt Wolfe excitedly shared the news.
“As someone who’s been an advisor for Leonardo for the past year, this is super exciting news!” he posted on X, formerly Twitter.
It was the first time that Phil Sim, founder of Australian media trade publication Influencing, had seen the California-based technology content creator disclose his relationship with the generative AI company that was reportedly purchased for US$250 million (A$370 million). As it turns out, Wolfe had also mentioned it once in a June video, but otherwise had not flagged his adviser status during the dozens of other times he had mentioned the company in the previous year.
Wolfe, who has 637,000 subscribers on his tech YouTube channel, had made at least five videos mentioning Leonardo, typically in quite glowing terms. The videos have garnered nearly 1 million views between them.
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One video dedicated to Leonardo, titled “Use This Midjourney Alternative For Free”, opens with a testimonial from Wolfe about how it has become his “go-to AI art generation platform.”
“When it comes to really colourful and beautiful artistic images I actually think there’s a better platform to play around with and it’s a platform that you can play around with for free … You can sign up for free,” he says.
Another video, “What Image Generator Should YOU Be Using??”, assessed Leonardo’s image generation abilities against seven competitors — and scored it higher than all the others.
During the same period, Wolfe has also mentioned the company in at least 14 X posts to his 85,000 followers, and three times in his newsletter.
A spokesperson for Leonardo confirmed that Wolfe is an adviser. “Note that he is not a part of our affiliate program and isn’t engaged on a pay-per-lead or any similar type of affiliate-style arrangement,” they said in an email. They did not immediately respond to further questions about whether his role involved advising on promotion or whether he was required to promote the company on his various platforms.
Wolfe did not respond to multiple requests for comment. His LinkedIn says that prior to launching his AI-focused YouTube channel and podcast, he was the founder of a blockchain-related marketing company and, before that, another online marketing company.
Sim said he thought the lack of disclosure was interesting. “There’s a very good reason that journalists disclose that they own shares in any company they report on, and with independent creators like Wolfe becoming an ever-increasingly significant part of the media landscape, I feel strongly they should carry those same responsibilities,” he wrote.
Leonardo is a Sydney-based AI company that earlier this year launched Australia’s first major foundation model to power its products. It will continue to operate as a separate company after the Canva acquisition.
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