Understanding Authenticity in the Age of AI

Feng, Y., Yang, J., Youngs, K., & Chien, T.-H. (2025, August). Authenticity construction: Cognitive pathways and AI heuristics in interpreting authenticity of AI-generated advertising. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of AEJMC, San Francisco, CA.

The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) in advertising has challenged traditional notions of authenticity, as AI-generated advertising (AIGA) leverages advanced generative models to create synthetic branded content. Thus, research is needed to explore how consumers actively interpret authenticity when encountering AI-generated ads. We draw on in-depth interviews with 23 social media users to examine how consumers interpret and evaluate AIGA. Extending previous work on advertising authenticity and using constructivist grounded theory, we conceptualize a process termed authenticity construction, the cognitive mechanism through which consumers construct authenticity upon recognizing AI’s role in ad creation. Findings identify three key stages in this process: attribution activation, where the disclosure of AIGA initiates consumers’ AI heuristics; creative inference, where consumers mentally simulate AI’s involvement and use their AI heuristics to assess different dimensions of ad authenticity; and authenticity appraisal, where contextual factors further prioritize their focus on particular dimensions of ad authenticity and influence their final ad judgments.