Consumers are paying attention to content generated by AI, says research

Ah, the wonderful and omnipresent artificial intelligence! A recent Bynder study revealed how consumers interact with AI-produced content compared to human content in 2024.

As the use of AI increases, consumers’ awareness of the telltale signs of non-human-produced content will likely increase. To test this, Bynder conducted a study to reveal how many people can identify when content is entirely written by AI and how this affects their engagement and opinions of the associated brand.

In a survey of 2,000 participants from the UK and US, Bynder presented two articles; one written by ChatGPT and one by a trained writer. They both had the same goal: “Write 300 words about how to clean your car.”

50% of consumers can identify AI-generated text

US consumers are more aware of the signs of AI-generated content, with US respondents 10% more likely to identify when content is AI-generated than UK consumers. A March 2023 study found that 58% of US adults have heard of ChatGPT, but 42% have never heard of it. The number of Americans aware of AI means they are more likely to identify the content it generates.

55% of US respondents correctly identified which copy was written using AI, compared to 45% of UK consumers. A study of UK citizens found that only 26% had used a generative AI tool, significantly less than in the US. This correlates with the Bynder study results, with UK consumers 10% less likely to identify AI-generated texts as they are less likely to use an AI tool like ChatGPT.

More than half of consumers felt more engaged with AI-generated content

When presented with the two articles (without being told which was which), 56% of participants said they preferred the AI-generated version to the human-generated article.

However, when asked about their attitudes toward reading text they suspect is AI-generated, 52% of consumers said they would become less engaged.

Participants aged 16 to 24 were the only age group to find the human-created content more engaging than the AI-generated version. Of those in this age group who had a preference, 55% voted for the human-written article as the most engaging.

Consumers view brands that use AI as impersonal

Participants were asked how they felt about reading AI-generated content across multiple platforms. In terms of website copy, 26% of respondents would feel that the brand is impersonal if the text does not appear to be written by humans, and 20% would feel that the brand is lazy.

Similarly, for social media texts that appear to be generated by AI, 25% of consumers would feel the brand is impersonal, 20% untrustworthy, 20% would feel they are lazy, and 19% would feel they are uncreative.

If a consumer is interacting with a chatbot that they suspect is AI-generated, more than 30% would think the associated brand is impersonal.

Warren Daniels, CMO at Bynder, said: “As AI advances and an increasing number of marketers use it for content creation, it’s important that we don’t lose sight of best practices. Our research shows that as the use of AI increases, the most important element of a marketing campaign should be the human touch.”

“AI offers significant benefits to marketers. Each year, marketers are faced with the challenge of creating and managing more assets than the year before, and increasingly advanced AI tools are a revolutionary way to help with this task. However, responsible AI must always be prioritized.”