They showed the ads to 3,000 consumers. Only 25% of AI ad viewers were at least somewhat confident the spot was AI-made, and 40% of all viewers were uncertain either way — suggesting the public isn’t great at spotting ads that are AI generated.
But here’s the interesting part: While most people didn’t register that ads were AI-generated, they also didn’t respond to them like they did with human-generated ads. They consistently rated human-made work as more eye-catching and more imaginative.
In other words, people assumed AI ads were made by people, but didn’t particularly like them compared to human-generated ads. And that means human-generated ads performed much better.
Ads made by people without AI were 14% stronger on short-term sales impact and 17% stronger on long-term brand health.