The research, carried out with Columbia University, Harvard University, Technical University of Munich and Carnegie Mellon University, found that generative AI advertising could perform just as well as human-made adverts, with AI adverts seeing a marginally higher click-through rate.

The study, called AI ads that work: How AI creative stacks up against humans, was based on analysis of hundreds of thousands of live adverts running on Realize, Taboola’s performance advertising platform.

The study compared matched pairs of AI-generated and human-made ads created by the same advertiser for the same campaign on the same day, which allowed researchers to isolate the impact of the generative AI creative while controlling for external variables, such as the identity of the advertiser, timing, audience targeting and landing pages.

Adverts were judged on factors including click-through rate, and whether human participants could accurately identify AI-generated or human-made adverts.

Researchers said that AI adverts that did not “look like AI” had the highest levels of engagement among all the adverts studied, outperforming both human-made and artificial-looking AI generated advertisements.

Human faces were noted as a “secret ingredient” for building trust with the audience, with the presence of a large, clear human face making an advert feel ‘human’ and trustworthy.

The study noted that many AI-generated adverts were more likely to include a human face in this way to build trust than human-generated adverts.

AI-generated visuals increased or maintained click-through rates without reducing downstream conversion performance, the study found.

Oded Netzer, vice-dean for research at Columbia Business School, said: “Our findings prove that when AI is used to enhance human cues – like the trust found in a human face – it doesn’t just match human performance; it often sets a new ceiling for engagement.”