TikTok Shop side hustlers, watch your back.
Brands and TikTok’s algorithms are increasingly adopting AI-generated videos that include influencer and product images. The technology could hurt the business of creators who focus their content on shoppable videos aimed at making money through TikTok’s e-commerce affiliate program.
These creators aren’t celebrities like MrBeast, nor are they “micro-influencers” with small but loyal followings. They are often side hustles focused on one goal: selling a product.
Their videos can appear prominently on feeds, especially during major e-commerce periods like the Black Friday-Cyber Monday rush, when creators posted about 10 million shoppable videos.
Fabian Overhand, founder of social commerce company Socialscale.ai, likens his company’s content to “a little billboard you see on the side of the road.”
AI can imitate and iterate on gimmicky videos from creators who use similar scripts around flash sales and short-term price reductions. TikTok’s automated advertising system, GMV Max, is increasingly showing these AI-generated product videos in your feed. One AI video maker has brought in tens of thousands of dollars in product sales, according to screenshots of its affiliate profile viewed by Business Insider.
The rise of AI posting is starting to change the look and feel of the TikTok Shop ecosystem. A TikTok Shop employee said the matter has become a “hot topic” within the company.
Some brands are now using AI to recreate multiple versions of successful influencer posts, according to three shop marketers. Some people are using this technology to post hundreds of times a month without paying creators or sending them free samples.
Synthetic influencers and AI-generated products are rampant on TikTok Shop. TikTok.
However, AI influencers can cause a backlash, leading some brands to stop using generative AI altogether. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Shark Ninja, a maker of vacuum cleaners and smoothie machines, has banned creators from using AI in its affiliate programs.
Ashley Wright, CEO of TikTok Shop agency Social Tail, said some brands are “happy” to use AI if it increases sales, while others are concerned about the potential for reputational damage.
Many brands still favor human creators with established followings and influencers, especially when they’re trying to increase product awareness rather than push sales.
“We basically use AI tools to test what works and what doesn’t, and then we work with real creators on concepts that work,” said Anish Dalal, an executive at social commerce and marketing firm Saad. “If it works really well with synthetic creators, it will work even better with real creators.”
The discussion of generative AI goes far beyond TikTok. Marketers on social platforms like Meta struggle to strike the right balance between using AI to improve workflow efficiency and avoiding deceptive and “sleazy” advertising.
AI still renders many viewers unwatchable
Currently, the main obstacle to generative AI on TikTok is that videos often fall into the uncanny valley as synthetic characters with tiny computer-generated voices try to sell products.
For example, in one post, an influencer with AI-generated blonde hair pulled on a hooded shirt to show how its soft collar was made from a “moderate texture” material.
Other AI Shop videos show products being used in ways that seem to defy real-world physics. In a series of posts viewed by Business Insider over the past few months, synthetic avatars used a power washing machine, propane torch, pet brush, and microfiber duster to spotlessly clean driveways, pets, and air conditioning vents in seconds.
Even if an AI video isn’t labeled, users are still paying attention.
“I’ve never seen green grass burn like that. Stupid AI,” one user commented on a video of someone using a propane torch to quickly weed out a driveway.
Another user wrote, “That’s good, but not that good.”
Bad AI can cause quality issues in the market
TikTok’s ability to maintain the appeal of its video feed will be critical to its long-term success as it competes for sales in the highly competitive U.S. e-commerce industry.
Since its U.S. launch in 2023, the company has grown into a formidable e-commerce company, with U.S. sales expected to exceed $23 billion this year, according to projections from Business Insider’s sister company EMARKETER. Although the company’s U.S. sales are still a long way from Amazon’s, EMARKETER expects sales to exceed $500 billion this year. The company’s advantage over incumbents like Amazon and Walmart is its army of influencers.
Ensuring marketplace quality in the AI era is not easy. In November, Nicholas Waldman, who heads TikTok Shop’s governance and experience relations team, told Business Insider that some fraudulent sellers are using generative AI to create fake storefronts for products that don’t actually exist.
Advertising and e-commerce lawyer Robert Freund said AI-generated videos could also pose legal problems for brands selling authentic products. In addition to potentially misleading viewers about a product’s features, having a synthetic influencer claim to have used a product could violate the FTC’s requirement that advertising spokespeople provide “honest opinions” in testimonials, he said.
Freund said AI makes it “much easier to create deceptive content at scale, whether intentionally or not.”
Recently, governing bodies such as the European Union and New York state have enacted laws requiring brands to disclose when composite characters are used in advertising. TikTok did not respond to a request for comment, but wrote in a seller document that generative AI is acceptable as long as the videos are labeled, do not misrepresent products or imitate real people, and respect intellectual property rights.
As technology improves, more blue-chip brands are likely to adopt generated AI video.
“Why do we spend so much money, time and effort to get something? [user-generated content] “If AI can do it for a tenth of the cost, can we do it?” said Socialscale.ai’s Overhand. “This is a huge opportunity for enterprises.”