68% of Consumers Question If Online Content They See Is Real or AI-Generated

Some AI firms and investors might be high-fiving each other at this news, but major brands are finding that, in an age of 'authenticity,' such confusion and/or skepticism is driving 50% of  purchasers to seek reassurance about a product's reality before they buy. 

Some marketing campaigns are going so far as to append messages such as "No AI generated bodies or people." The larger issue is that AI is extremely unpopular, with 55% in a recent poll quoted by the Wall Street Journal expressing the belief that AI will do more harm than good. Most of this is due to the AI industry's own missteps, as they fight attempts by individuals to seek compensation for intellectual property used to train AI, tout its job-destroying threat as a benefit to managers and brag about how AI will cement their control of the economy. While taking steps to assure the public that online content is real may not significantly affect AI's profitability and short term growth, it is another issue which investors must contemplate as they try to assess the validity longer term AI financial projections. JL

Patrick Coffee reports in the Wall Street Journal:

68% of consumers question whether the content they see is real (vs AI generated), and 50% would rather spend their money with brands that don’t use generative AI in marketing. Another report found 63% of consumers think brands have a duty to disclose when they use AI in marketing. “A lot of people are assuming real stuff is AI” as major platforms have struggled to detect and label AI-generated content. Marketers may not always have a choice on disclosure as regulators begin to step in. New York last year became the first state to pass a law requiring businesses to disclose the use of AI-generated humans in their marketing content.

As the AI-generated imagery and video colloquially called slop spreads across social media and video feeds, marketers are going out of their way to tell consumers they’re not to blame.

For some, it’s part of a message about authenticity that they want to send to their customers.

“We commit: No AI generated bodies or people,” promised a campaign last month from Aerie, the intimate apparel brand owned by American Eagle Outfitters. The ads depict actress Pamela Anderson prompting a chatbot to create models before revealing that they were real people the whole time. 

Aerie had already pledged in an Instagram post last October that it would never use artificial intelligence tools to generate or manipulate images of people, building on its 2014 promise not to retouch people in its ads, according to Chief Marketing Officer Stacey McCormick.

“Our DNA is about realness, about not changing a person, you know, not erasing stretch marks,” McCormick said.

For other companies, “no AI” disclaimers are less mission statements than appeals to consumers who have developed a certain cynicism regarding the use of generative tools.

Sixty-eight percent of consumers regularly question whether the content they see is real, and 50% would rather spend their money with brands that don’t use generative AI in marketing, according to a survey by market research firm Gartner. Another report from software firm Cint found that 63% of consumers think brands have a duty to disclose when they use AI in marketing. 

“There’s never been a moment where consumers are more aware of how marketing works,” said Rachel Karten, author of the Link in Bio newsletter about working in social media. “What’s even scarier than the skepticism around actual AI is that a lot of people are assuming real stuff is AI.”

Their suspicions aren’t necessarily unreasonable. Major social-media platforms have struggled to detect and label AI-generated content.

“It will be more practical to fingerprint real media than fake media” as feeds start to “fill up with synthetic everything,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri wrote in December. 

A number of brands are already on board.

Cookware maker Le Creuset has shared several Instagram posts created by Ian Padgham, a digital video artist known as @Origiful who uses a labor-intensive process to manipulate videos so that Le Creuset’s signature pot appears in playful forms, including, in his latest post, a cruise ship, an umbrella and a coffee cup.

 

But as Le Creuset explains in the comments below the post, Padgham’s videos are entirely AI-free.

The company outlined the process to pre-emptively counter consumer backlash against AI, according to Padgham.

“It’s a very smart way for brands to approach how they’re producing content if they’re working with real artists,” he said. “In the past six months, there’s been such an uptick of comments on any video I do, like, ‘Is this AI or AI slop?’ or ‘I hate AI.’”

That can be the case even when a brand volunteers that no AI was involved. Le Creuset’s latest video got plenty of plaudits, but Padgham still had to reassure many Instagram users in the comments that his videos truly aren’t AI.

Brands in certain sectors are particularly eager to put consumers at ease.

The baby products marketer Coterie this year told followers it wouldn’t use any AI-generated images in its social-media marketing. The AI stance helps the company stand out in a crowded market where brands work to earn parents’ trust, according to CEO Jess Jacobs.

None of this is to say these marketers are anti-AI absolutists, or that such a position is even feasible.

“AI really does help improve our customer experience and operational efficiency in many ways, but we’re never going to use it to replace the human moments that define our brand,” Jacobs said.

And while Aerie won’t use AI to create people in its content, or even the backgrounds behind them, the brand isn’t averse to AI help with small changes like lighting adjustments after the fact, said McCormick, the CMO.

Budgetary concerns also play a role. Aerie spends more on production to avoid using AI-generated models, said McCormick.

“Other businesses may not be able to do that, and we’re not shining a light on any of that, or putting shame or anything towards that,” she said.

Marketers may not always have a choice on disclosure as regulators begin to step in.

New York last year became the first state to pass a law requiring businesses to disclose the use of AI-generated humans in their marketing content. It is scheduled to take effect in June.