Is AI Advertising Getting Out of Control?

[Berry Scary]

We’ve all seen low-effort ads online, but lately it feels like we’re entering the AI spam era of advertising.

And it's not just smaller companies trying to cut costs, but major brands too. I recently came across news about Samsung incorporating AI into a number of their newer ads, and it made me realize how common this is becoming across the board.

Samsung’s New Galaxy S26 Ads Are More AI Than Real Video

Samsung is teasing the Galaxy S26 with stunning night shots, but there's a catch: the social media video ads are AI-generated.

www.androidheadlines.com

Once you start looking for it, you begin to see it everywhere.

Even when an ad isn’t fully AI-generated, a lot of them are clearly using AI retouching tools. There’s that slightly “off” look: lighting that feels artificial, textures that are too smooth, tiny visual glitches that don’t quite make sense. Sometimes it’s subtle. Other times it’s painfully obvious.

It's not like I mindlessly hate AI. I know some people have a moral objection to using it for promotion, but advertising has always been about polishing reality. CGI, heavy Photoshop, staged environments... none of that is new. In that sense, AI is just the next tool in the box.

What bothers me is something else.

If a company is willing to rely heavily on AI because it’s faster and cheaper, does that say anything about how much effort they’re putting into the product itself? Maybe that’s unfair. Maybe production efficiency has nothing to do with product quality. But when an ad feels rushed or synthetic, it makes the whole brand feel slightly lower effort to me.

At the same time, I can’t ignore the efficiency side. From a business perspective, AI lowers production costs, speeds up iteration, and makes scaling creative easier. That’s hard to argue against.

So I’m torn.

Is anyone else noticing this increase in AI ads?

Does the use of AI in advertising change how you feel about a brand?

Do you see it as smart cost-cutting, or as a shortcut that cheapens things?

And if you’re in marketing yourself, are you already using AI in your ad creative?

It feels like we’re heading toward a point where AI-generated ads will be the default rather than the exception. I’m not sure whether that’s neutral, positive, or the start of a long-term drop in creative standards. Personally, I lean toward the latter, but maybe I’m just being cynical.

Are we heading into a future where 90% of ads are AI-generated and nobody cares?

 

[ggmopa]

Look at the Will Smith eating Spaghetti test to see how far we've come in such a short space of time:

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https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/1r1auy1/will_smith_eating_spaghetti_by_seedance_20_is

Looking at the way things are, can't really see what you're saying more or less not happening

 

[Berry Scary]

Look at the Will Smith eating Spaghetti test to see how far we've come in such a short space of time:

View this content on Instagram

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https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/1r1auy1/will_smith_eating_spaghetti_by_seedance_20_is

Looking at the way things are, can't really see what you're saying more or less not happening

You make a good point. I hadn't really addressed that AI itself has improved in terms of quality.

That being said, it kind of adds to what I'm saying here. I guess my question is less about whether the quality will improve (because it obviously will), and more about what happens when it becomes indistinguishable from real footage.

At that point, do brands still feel the need to invest in actual creative direction, or does everything just become hyper-optimized synthetic content?

Does it really stop being low effort just because the AI itself looks more realistic? Or does it just mean that the audience won't notice that they are being fed low-effort content?

 

[ggmopa]

You make a good point. I hadn't really addressed that AI itself has improved in terms of quality.

That being said, it kind of adds to what I'm saying here. I guess my question is less about whether the quality will improve (because it obviously will), and more about what happens when it becomes indistinguishable from real footage.

At that point, do brands still feel the need to invest in actual creative direction, or does everything just become hyper-optimized synthetic content?

Nope. They won't invest as much in creatived, and honestly, even though the high-end boutique firms will likely remain, it's possibly going to dimish markets for authentic content curators. Adobe was already facing scrutiny not tool ong ago, because it looked like the company could've collapsed. Black magic, on the other hand didn't seem affected. So that just shows you that the small time editors and designers, and smaller companies using their more basic apps must've made up a large portion of their user base amd then atarted switching to Genertative AI apps.

Does it really stop being low effort just because the AI itself looks more realistic? Or does it just mean that the audience won't notice that they are being fed low-effort content?

At this pount in time the difference is still noticeable. And I think, although it's usage is already so widespread, I think there's just something unpalatable about them. Of course, this good all change as things progress. But right now, just seems most of the emphasis is on trashy stuff like erotic art. And the above might explain why lmao. Will smith still puts me off spaghetti for a while after watching the test. Even the '26 version.

 

[roydan]

The thing I see as one of the ones that are running a but load of AI ads is that

1. Even though low quality AI ads suck, they don't suck from a performance perspective. At least not yet.
2. The reason we push these is that they allow us to test a lot of different angles and creatives before we produce an actual ad.

 

[Berry Scary]

The thing I see as one of the ones that are running a but load of AI ads is that

1. Even though low quality AI ads suck, they don't suck from a performance perspective. At least not yet.
2. The reason we push these is that they allow us to test a lot of different angles and creatives before we produce an actual ad.

Your second point is important to remember. People can use AI to enhance creativity, like testing concepts and ideas easily and cheaply before production.

The problem is still that it encourages laziness in advertising because ultimately saving money is more important to companies than providing quality services.

Just a side effect of capitalism, unfortunately.

 

[roydan]

The problem is still that it encourages laziness in advertising because ultimately saving money is more important to companies than providing quality services

At the beginning it encourages laziness but a little after that it pushes the "average" product (in this case, ad creative) quality up very fast.

 

[Berry Scary]

At the beginning it encourages laziness but a little after that it pushes the "average" product (in this case, ad creative) quality up very fast.

I don't have a lot of faith in that happening, but I appreciate your perspective.

 

[roydan]

I don't have a lot of faith in that happening, but I appreciate your perspective.

The users and industry are usually the forces at play here.

Brand won't work with an agency that can only produce crap, users will look toward buying from companies that had a nicer looking ad, etc.

 

[Preying Mantis]

I sometimes suck ass at telling the difference between ai ads and regular ads but ads in general are getting out of control.

 

[Champagne]

In some capacity, yes. AI is known for disrupting entire industries, and advertising is no exception.

 

[MisterF]

I clicked on a FB post about epoxy flooring recently, it had had tens of thousands of views.

People commenting how great it looked etc, I replied "you realise this video is AI garbage? Who the fuck lays epoxy flooring with curtains still in place, but can glide over liquid and not get any on their trainers?"

 

[Berry Scary]

I clicked on a FB post about epoxy flooring recently, it had had tens of thousands of views.

People commenting how great it looked etc, I replied "you realise this video is AI garbage? Who the fuck lays epoxy flooring with curtains still in place, but can glide over liquid and not get any on their trainers?"

I'm pretty sure I saw the same video. Even if the details are passable, some common sense would tell you that there's no way it could be real.

Every time I see these AI ads I think "This is so bad, why would they want to advertise themselves this way?" and then I remember the average person isn't even going to notice.