AI-Generated ads match human-created campaigns in effectiveness, global study finds

AI-generated advertisements are as effective as human-created ads in driving consumer engagement, according to a large-scale academic study cited by CNBC-TV18.

The findings were announced by Taboola following research conducted in collaboration with scholars from Columbia University, Harvard University, the Technical University of Munich and Carnegie Mellon University. The study analysed hundreds of thousands of live advertisements served on Taboola’s performance advertising platform, Realize, covering more than 500 million ad impressions and over three million clicks.

According to the research, AI-generated ads recorded a marginally higher average click-through rate of 0.76% compared with 0.65% for human-made ads in raw data. However, after applying statistical controls, the performance of both types of ads was found to be broadly similar. The study further found that AI-generated ads which were not perceived by users as artificial delivered the highest engagement levels.

The research identified the presence of a prominent and clearly visible human face as a key factor in improving trust and engagement in advertisements. It noted that AI-generated ads were more likely than human-created ads to include such visual elements, contributing to their performance.

Researchers also found that AI-generated visuals either increased or maintained click-through rates without negatively affecting downstream conversion performance. Early adoption of AI-generated advertising was most evident in sectors such as food and beverages and personal finance.

The study employed a quasi-experimental ‘sibling ads’ methodology, comparing matched pairs of AI-generated and human-made ads created by the same advertiser for the same campaign on the same day. This approach allowed the researchers to control for external variables and isolate the impact of AI-generated creative elements on ad performance.