An international survey by YouGov has revealed what consumers around the world think about the use of generative AI in advertising for brands and products.
This comes as OpenAI's Sam Altman suggests AI could take over more than 95% of what advertising and creative professionals produce today, and as major tech companies such as Meta and Google roll out new AI-powered image and text generation tools for ad production.
According to a YouGov survey, consumers around the world are most comfortable with AI deciding on ad placements on media channels, with 42% expressing this opinion.
In comparison, these insights revealed that consumers are most concerned about AI creating virtual ambassadors, with only 34% saying they are comfortable with this use.
Fifty-three percent of Australians are uncomfortable with brands using artificial intelligence (AI) to develop virtual brand ambassadors, and 52% are uncomfortable with AI using it to edit product images.
However, fewer than half of Australians were uncomfortable with AI being used to generate product images (49%), copywrite advertising and product descriptions (45%) and determine advertising media placement (42%).
Compared to the 17 other countries surveyed, Australia ranked in the middle when it came to concerns about the use of AI in marketing.
The countries most uncomfortable with the technology being used in advertising were France, Sweden, the UK, Spain, Canada and Italy.
However, while almost half of Australians say they are comfortable with the use of AI in advertising and marketing, the majority of this half believe brands should disclose how they use AI.
Of those who are comfortable with using virtual brand ambassadors, 76% believe brands should make it public.
This sentiment was echoed by 70% who said they would be comfortable with AI generating product images, 67% who were comfortable with editing product images, 63% who were comfortable with advertising and product description copywriting, and 60% who were comfortable with determining advertising media placement.
In this respect, Australia ranks among the best.
Other top countries include Spain, Poland, the UK and India.
These insights can be found in Part 1 and Part 2 on the YouGov website.
Methodology: YouGov Surveys: Serviced delivers rapid, nationally representative or targeted survey results in multiple markets. Data is based on surveys of adults aged 18+ in 17 markets, with sample sizes ranging from 500 to 2,040 per market. All surveys were conducted online in January 2024. Data for each market uses a nationally representative sample, except for Mexico and India, which use urban representative samples, and Indonesia and Hong Kong, which use online representative samples. Learn more about YouGov Surveys: Serviced here.
