A new survey finds that 43% of American adults say they have felt duped by AI-generated advertising, raising fresh questions about transparency as retailers lean harder on artificial intelligence to sell products online.
The poll of 2,000 U.S. adults, commissioned by Auros and conducted by Talker Research, found that 44% of Americans say they frequently encounter products advertised using some form of AI. On average, people say they question whether an ad they’re looking at shows a real or AI-generated product about four times a week.
More than half of respondents said they do not trust that AI-advertised products actually match their descriptions. Sixty-one percent believe at least one type of brand is likely to use misleading or AI-focused marketing tactics.
Clothing brands and beauty and cosmetic brands topped the list of suspected offenders, each named by 16% of respondents, followed by electronics (14%), luxury goods (11%), and food and beverage brands (11%). Walmart (27%) and Amazon (26%) were named as the retailers most likely to use AI marketing, with social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook close behind at 24%.
Americans are not nearly as good at spotting AI as they think they are. While 44% said they felt confident they could tell a real product from an AI one in an ad, only 22% admitted they couldn’t. When researchers actually tested people, the results told a different story.
When shown genuine, unaltered products, only 52% of respondents correctly identified them as real. Nearly a third, 31%, wrongly guessed the products were AI-generated, and 18% assumed real products had been AI-enhanced when they hadn’t been touched.
When shown products that were entirely AI-generated, just 42% correctly identified them as fake. Thirty-four percent believed the AI images were real, and 24% thought they were real products with AI enhancements.
The most confusion came from real products that actually had been enhanced with AI. Only 20% of people correctly identified these for what they were. Sixty percent wrongly assumed the entire product was AI-generated, and 21% thought it was simply real.
The findings suggest a public that increasingly assumes it’s being lied to by advertisers, whether or not that’s actually happening. More than a third, 36%, believe a product is lower quality if AI was used in its marketing. Only 17% think the opposite, that AI involvement signals higher quality.
“There’s a fascinating trust divide emerging around AI in commerce,” said Bobby Meixner, vice president of solution marketing at Auros. “Consumers are skeptical when AI is being used to persuade them, but much more receptive when they’re the ones using AI to make a better decision. People aren’t necessarily rejecting AI in shopping. They’re rejecting the feeling that AI is being used on them rather than for them.”
That distinction showed up clearly in the data. While Americans distrust AI in advertising, they’re far more comfortable using it themselves. Fifty-three percent said AI has actually been helpful to them while shopping, most often for finding the lowest price (24%), locating alternative products (22%), or pulling up reviews (22%).
Looking ahead to the holidays, 54% of respondents plan to use AI tools for at least part of their shopping this year, whether to find the best prices (21%), get gift suggestions (17%), compare reviews across sites (16%), hunt deals (15%), or track packages (15%). Thirty-seven percent believe AI will make it easier to find gifts this season.
On average, holiday shoppers reported spending the most time, four hours, shopping for a significant other or their children, and the least, two hours, shopping for coworkers.
“AI could be the biggest change to e-commerce since e-commerce itself,” Meixner said. “Online shopping has always been an experience designed by the retailer. AI flips that model: the shopper can now have an experience assembled around them, using information from across the internet rather than from one retailer alone. That could solve personalization at a scale retailers never could, but it also fundamentally changes who controls the shopping journey.”
The survey was conducted online among 2,000 general population American adults with internet access between Aug. 26 and Sept. 1, 2026.
