Scroll through your social feed long enough and you start to wonder: is any of this real? That question is no longer just casual skepticism. It's reshaping how consumers feel about the brands they buy from and whether they trust them at all.
Sixty-eight percent of consumers regularly question whether the content they see online is real, and 50% say they'd rather spend money with brands that don't use generative AI in their marketing, according to a Gartner survey. A report from Cint found that 63% of consumers think brands have a duty to disclose when AI is involved, a strong signal that transparency is becoming an expectation.
Some brands are listening. Aerie, the intimates brand owned by American Eagle Outfitters, has made a public commitment: no AI-generated bodies, no AI-generated people, adding another layer to a promise back in 2014 not to retouch people in their ads. Summing up the company’s marketing strategy, their CMO stated that "Our DNA is about realness."
Regulators are also starting to weigh in. New York became the first state to require disclosure when AI-generated humans appear in marketing content. The law takes effect this June and more states are expected to follow. For consumers, that's good news. The era of wondering "is this real?" may finally be getting some guardrails.
Scroll through your social feed long enough and you start to wonder: is any of this real? That question is no longer just casual skepticism. It's reshaping how consumers feel about the brands they buy from and whether they trust them at all.
Sixty-eight percent of consumers regularly question whether the content they see online is real, and 50% say they'd rather spend money with brands that don't use generative AI in their marketing, according to a Gartner survey. A report from Cint found that 63% of consumers think brands have a duty to disclose when AI is involved, a strong signal that transparency is becoming an expectation.
Some brands are listening. Aerie, the intimates brand owned by American Eagle Outfitters, has made a public commitment: no AI-generated bodies, no AI-generated people, adding another layer to a promise back in 2014 not to retouch people in their ads. Summing up the company’s marketing strategy, their CMO stated that "Our DNA is about realness."
Regulators are also starting to weigh in. New York became the first state to require disclosure when AI-generated humans appear in marketing content. The law takes effect this June and more states are expected to follow. For consumers, that's good news. The era of wondering "is this real?" may finally be getting some guardrails.