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New Study: AI Ads Match Human Creative in Major Report from Columbia University, Harvard University, Technical University of Munich, and Carnegie Mellon University; Taboola Data Shows AI Wins by Appearing Authentically Human and Prioritizing Visual Tr...
New Study: AI Ads Match Human Creative in Major Report from Columbia University, Harvard University, Technical University of Munich, and Carnegie Mellon
About this update from Taboola.com Ltd.
[{"type":"text","content":"New Study: AI Ads Match Human Creative in Major Report from Columbia University, Harvard University, Technical University of Munich, and Carnegie Mellon University; Taboola Data Shows AI Wins by Appearing Authentically Human and Prioritizing Visual Trust Signals \n NEW YORK, Jan. 28, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Taboola (Nasdaq: TBLA), a global leader in delivering performance at scale for advertisers, today announced the findings of a major field study conducted in collaboration with researchers at Columbia University, Harvard University,Technical University of Munich, and Carnegie Mellon University. The research provides the first-ever look at how generative AI (GenAI) compares to human creativity in driving consumer action by analyzing large-scale real-world ad performance. While GenAI has revolutionized production speed and cost, its impact on actual performance has remained a subject of intense debate. The new study, titled, \"AI Ads That Work: How AI Creative Stacks Up Against Humans,” analyzed hundreds of thousands of live ads running on Realize, Taboola’s performance advertising platform, totaling more than 500 million impressions and 3 million clicks. Key insights from the academic research include: GenAI ads perform just as well as human-made ads: AI-generated ads performed just as well as human-made ads. In raw data, AI ads saw a slightly higher average click-through-rate (CTR) (0.76%) compared to human ads (0.65%), though they performed comparably when researchers applied the tightest statistical controls.AI ads win the most when they don’t “look” like AI: AI-generated ads that did not \"look like AI\" achieved the highest engagement of all groups, significantly outperforming both human-made ads and AI ads that were perceived as artificial.Human faces are the \"secret ingredient\" for trust: The study found that one of the most important factors in making an ad feel \"human\" and trustworthy was the presence of a large, clear human face. Interestingly, based on Taboola’s best practices and policy restrictions, AI-generated ads were more likely to include these trust cues than their human-made counterparts.Brands no longer have to choose between speed and quality: AI-generated visuals increased or maintained click-through rates without reducing downstream conversion performance, proving that advertisers do not have to tra...