Commenting on brands using generative AI in their ads, SMU Professor of Marketing (Practice) and Associate Dean (Impact) of SMU’s Lee Kong Chian School of Business Sabine Benoit said that mediocre advertising tends to irritate consumers, irrespective of whether AI was used or not. She stated that using AI can signal that the company has not put much effort into the product, and that can come across as negligible which is the opposite of the signals the organisations want to send. Prof Benoit noted that while consumers are unlikely to judge a company negatively just because it uses AI, problems arise when the execution feels careless, generic or misleading. She added that since generative AI tools are still relatively new, many companies are still learning how to use them well, which is why some “fairly mediocre” work is still emerging.
