A recent report by NewsGuard has revealed a troubling trend: AI-generated chatbots are being employed to produce subpar Content that appeals to advertisers on Websites primarily created for advertising purposes.
The report discovered that over 140 major brands are unknowingly paying for advertisements that appear on unreliable AI-written platforms. These Websites lack human oversight during their creation and are rife with error messages commonly associated with generative AI systems. Remarkably, programmatic advertising stands as the primary source of revenue for these AI-generated websites, with the average cost of a programmatic ad reaching $1.21 per thousand impressions.
According to the Association of National Advertisers, 21% of ad impressions within their study were allocated to made-for-advertising Websites. NewsGuard, on the other hand, claims to identify approximately 25 new AI-generated Sites each week, a significant portion of which are also devoid of human supervision. Consequently, prominent brands unknowingly finance ad placements on Websites they may not have previously encountered, all while maintaining limited human oversight. The report discloses that numerous Fortune 500 companies and renowned brands inadvertently advertise on these platforms, inadvertently supporting their operations.
The proliferation of low-quality Content farms presents a mounting concern, and the emergence of AI-generated text further exacerbates the issue. These Websites commonly rely on attracting advertising revenue by employing poorly compensated individuals to generate substandard Content to meet demand.
NewsGuard utilizes AI technology to identify error messages on these platforms, which are subsequently reviewed by human analysts. Given that programmatic advertising is likely to persist as a crucial revenue stream for these sites, the report emphasizes the necessity for brands to thoroughly scrutinize the automatic placements of their advertisements, thereby avoiding inadvertent support of low-quality Content farms.
