{"id":439422,"date":"2026-02-22T10:03:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T10:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/439422\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T10:03:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T10:03:16","slug":"why-are-brands-no-longer-afraid-of-producing-ai-slop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/439422\/","title":{"rendered":"Why are brands no longer afraid of producing AI slop?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the last few years we’ve seen plenty of sheepish apologies from brands after they were caught using AI to create advertising materials. From Lego<\/a> to Pok\u00e9mon Go publisher Niantic<\/a>, brands have generally seemed contrite when confronted with evidence of artificially generated assets. But in recent months, something seems to have shifted.<\/p>\n

This Christmas we saw not one but two major AI controversies, from two of the world’s biggest brands. Both McDonald’s<\/a> and Coca-Cola<\/a> chose to slop all over the festive season with unapologetically obvious AI offerings. And just this week, Samsung<\/a> dropped a bunch dodgy ads \u2013 ironically designed to advertise the Galaxy<\/a> S26’s AI camera features \u2013 on social media.<\/p>\n

Brighten your after hours | Samsung – YouTube
\n\"Brighten<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a>
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Neither Coca-Cola nor Samsung have shown any kind of remorse over producing slop \u2013 in fact, with small-print pointing out the use of AI adorning both brands’ ads, what we’re seeing looks more like pride.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

To be fair, McDonald’s did eventually pull its AI Christmas ad<\/a> in response to the backlash, but that doesn’t change the fact that, like Coke and Samsung, the brand initially had no qualms about putting out a blatantly AI-generated ad.<\/p>\n

So why are brands suddenly unafraid to release such slop? One worrying possibility is that the shame is simply wearing off. Back in 2023 and 2024, when viewers spotted the tell-tale signs of AI; mangled typography, extra fingers, uncanny lighting, brands scrambled into damage-control mode. AI still felt somewhat illicit, like an ‘ideation’ tool whose output was actually meant to meet the eyes of consumers.<\/p>\n

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\"AI\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: McDonald’s)<\/p>\n

Whether we like it or not, there can be no denying that the AI aesthetic is becoming normalised. From overly polished corporate headshots to ludicrously dramatic YouTube<\/a> thumbnails, it’s clearly becoming less taboo to use the tech in certain applications.<\/p>\n

But judging by the vitriolic public comments on Coca-Cola’s, McDonald’s and Samsungs’ ads, viewers still largely disapprove of blatant AI use from brands. Which points, perhaps, to a disconnect between consumers and ad teams. Perhaps these brands are being led by internal politics of ‘innovation’. In a world where every tech brand on the planet is trumpeting ‘AI-powered’ features as a mark of forward momentum, it’s possible that advertisers don’t want to be seen as lagging behind \u2013 even if it means pumping out sub-par visuals.<\/p>\n

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But there is, of course, a more cynical reading. Rather than being oblivious to consumers’ continued distain for obvious AI visuals, perhaps brands don’t care. The internet roasted Coca-Cola’s Christmas ad, but was there any kind of meaningful boycott? Did sales dip? It’s possible that brands are coming to the realisation that a brief period of angry online noise is worth it for the reduction in production time and shoot costs \u2013 even if the overall quality of the ad is dramatically reduced too.<\/p>\n

AI might be becoming more commonplace, but there’s no denying that a blatantly AI-produced ad looks much worse than one that saw blood, sweat and tears poured into it. Brands know this as well as you and I do \u2013 the question is whether or not they actually care.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over the last few years we’ve seen plenty of sheepish apologies from brands after they were caught using…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-439422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}