What do students and early-career researchers think about AI-generated marketing?

Cover image: Microsoft Stock Images

Now that AI (or Artificial Intelligence) is almost everywhere, it comes as no surprise that everyone has their opinion about it. Some absolutely love it – you can write a professionally sounding email in just seconds, or you can happily enjoy an AI-generated video of a politician beating another politician (the one you don’t like), some absolutely hate it – the world is already in shambles, do we really need another thing ruining the climate and society even more? Nevertheless, it seems like AI is here to stay, so it is important, particularly from a professional perspective, to understand how people react to it and how you can potentially reap the benefits without making a critical mistake.

One might think that people who are younger and/or are more familiar and comfortable with technology in general would be the ones who can reliably distinguish between human and AI-generated content and be more welcoming towards the latter. The category of such people that comes to mind first is students and early-career researchers (research assistants, PhDs and postdocs in particular). Therefore, their attitudes towards the use of AI-generated content in marketing, the ability to differentiate AI content from human-made content, as well as how transparency in the use of such content affects their trust and acceptance, were explored in the study.

Customer attitudes towards AI-generated marketing content

When it comes to the use of AI-generated content in marketing, customers’ reactions are usually just as mixed. It is important to keep in mind that AI is used in marketing for many reasons and use cases, such as customer segmentation, data analysis, enhanced personalisation, process automation and so on; however, content made with AI is usually the thing that customers notice first and the most. For example, the infamous AI-generated Coca-Cola ad is sparking rage and disgust from its customers for a second year in a row, which is rarely considered a good thing, although some might say that bad publicity is still, well, publicity.

As the study showed, students and early-career researchers indicated a rather strong preference for human-created content, which they regarded as more engaging and authentic.  Additionally, the respondents agreed that AI-generated content is becoming more common, especially in academic and professional environments, but showed mixed attitudes regarding its presence in marketing communications. As some of the respondents decided to additionally elaborate on their perceptions of such content in an open-ended question, it became evident that this group does see and to some degree accepts AI as an additional, supporting tool, but not a full replacement for human creativity and work.

The survey results also uncovered a range of concerns regarding ethical issues associated with the use of generative AI, such as a lack of attribution, exploitation of artists' work, and misinformation, among others. There was also a discomfort over the undisclosed AI content usage shown - respondents preferred and trusted more brands that openly discuss their use of AI and felt misled when such usage was hidden. This way, several respondents indicated support for the use of AI only if ethical guidelines were followed and transparency was ensured.

Is that video AI-generated? Who and how can tell?

So, the other question was “Can this group of people reliably tell if something was AI-generated?” and the short answer is – rather not. The survey respondents were presented with two images and two texts – one from each pair was AI-generated, the other, human-created, was taken from a small clothing brand that promotes sustainable values – and asked to indicate whether there was anything (if not everything) made with AI. The results showed that only 37% of the respondents were able to detect the AI-generated image. With the text examples, it was even worse – both texts received around 50% of the votes (so 50% - “AI” and 50% - “Not AI” in a nutshell), which, subsequently, means that the response was as good as a random guess.

However, the main revelation of this part of the survey was that when asked about their level of confidence in given answers, the respondents were generally rather confident in their ability to make a distinction, especially with the image examples. Though confidence levels were not a strong predictor of accuracy, as, for example, 75% of the respondents who answered that they were “Extremely confident” in the detection of AI-generated images made a mistake, and 46% of the respondents who were “Not at all confident” made the right choice. Additionally, it also came to light that while respondents were rather confident about themselves, they highly doubted the ability of other people (the general public in this case) to make the same distinction.

Why and how to say that something was AI-generated in your marketing communication

As it was mentioned, the respondents were rather concerned about ethical considerations and a lack of transparency in AI use. Interestingly, the research suggests that when disclosure is provided, AI-generated images are usually received with increased scepticism and negativity, often followed by customers' feelings of being deceived (Zhang & Hur, 2025; Thomas et al., 2025), which might discourage companies from explicitly saying that they used AI.

While the study additionally confirmed that (as many as 45% of the respondents strongly agreed that they felt misled when companies used AI-generated content without providing disclosure, and 30% agreed in general), it also highlighted that the disclosure and transparency in such an AI application are extremely important for students and early-career researchers. They showed a clear preference for businesses that provided such information and, additionally, tended to be more accepting towards various other uses of AI (such as data analysis, reporting, personalisation, etc.) if the business was open about it.  

As Zhang and Hur (2025) highlight, it is not a good idea to use AI-generated content and hope that the target audience just won’t notice, especially if the customers already indicated their preference towards human-created one and generally expressed negative attitudes towards the lack of transparency and disclosure, as, for example, it was shown in the results of this study of students and early-career researchers. While there are ways to mitigate the potential backlash (for example, by additionally disclosing ethical motives of using an AI-generated image over a photo (Zhang & Hur, 2025)), it is still critical to carefully evaluate the way a business is implementing generative AI and generally assess if such implementation is even advisable in a particular use case.

For further reading:

Di Placido, D. (2025, November 5). Coca-Cola sparks backlash with AI-Generated Christmas ad, again. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2025/11/04/coca-cola-sparks-backlash-with-ai-generated-christmas-ad-again/

Grewal, D., Satornino, C. B., Davenport, T., & Guha, A. (2024). How generative AI is shaping the future of marketing. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-024-01064-3

Kaplan, A., & Haenlein, M. (2018). Siri, Siri, in my hand: Who’s the fairest in the land? On the interpretations, illustrations, and implications of artificial intelligence. Business Horizons, 62(1), 15–25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2018.08.004

Thomas, M. L., Yildirim-Erbasli, S. N., & Hariharan, S. (2025). Exploring undergraduate students’ perceptions of AI vs. human scoring and feedback. The Internet and Higher Education, 68, 101052. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2025.101052

Zhang, L., & Hur, C. (2025). The Impact of Generative AI Images on Consumer Attitudes in Advertising. Administrative Sciences, 15(10), 395. https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci15100395

About the author

Iryna Holobotovska is the main writer. In her career, she has worked in customer support and research, project management, and various administrative support and organisational tasks. Born and raised in Ukraine, she now resides in Finland and continues her personal and professional growth. Her leisure activities and hobbies include photography, hiking, playing piano and cross-country skiing.