Taboola & Columbia University Research Shows GenAI Ads Perform Just as Well as Human-Made Content

"Taboola, a global leader in delivering performance at scale for advertisers, announced the findings of a major field study conducted in collaboration with researchers at Columbia University, Harvard University, Technical University of Munich, and Carnegie Mellon University. The research provides the first-ever look at how generative AI (GenAI) compares to human creativity in driving consumer action by analysing large-scale real-world ad performance. While GenAI has revolutionised production speed and cost, its impact on actual performance has remained a subject of intense debate."

"The new study, titled "AI Ads That Work: How AI Creative Stacks Up Against Humans," analysed hundreds of thousands of live ads running on Realize, Taboola's performance advertising platform, totalling more than 500 million impressions and 3 million clicks. GenAI ads perform just as well as human-made ads: AI-generated ads performed just as well as human-made ads. In raw data, AI ads saw a slightly higher average click-through-rate (CTR) (0.76%) compared to human ads (0.65%), though they performed comparably when researchers applied the tightest statistical controls."

"AI ads win the most when they don't "look" like AI: AI-generated ads that did not "look like AI" achieved the highest engagement of all groups, significantly outperforming both human-made ads and AI ads that were perceived as artificial. Human faces are the "secret ingredient" for trust: The study found that one of the most important factors in making an ad feel "human" and trustworthy was the presence of a large, clear human face. Interestingly, based on Taboola's best practices and policy restrictions, AI-generated ads were more likely to include these trust cues than their human-made counterparts."

Hundreds of thousands of live ads on a performance advertising platform were analysed, totaling over 500 million impressions and 3 million clicks. AI-generated ads performed on par with human-made ads, showing a slightly higher average click-through-rate in raw data but comparable results under strict statistical controls. AI-generated ads that did not appear artificial produced the highest engagement, outperforming both human-made ads and AI ads perceived as artificial. The presence of a large, clear human face strongly increased perceptions of trust. AI-generated creatives were more likely to include such trust cues and maintained or increased CTR without reducing downstream conversion performance.

Read at Exchangewire