TikTok Shop scammers should watch their backs.

Brands – and the TikTok algorithm – are increasingly embracing videos with influencers and AI-generated product images. The technology could put a dent in the businesses of creators who focus their content on shoppable videos designed to make money through TikTok’s e-commerce affiliate program.

These creators are not household names like MrBeast, or “micro-influencers” who have cultivated a small but loyal following. They are often scammers focused on one goal: selling you products.

Your videos can rank high in the feed, particularly during key periods for e-commerce, such as Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday, when creators published around 10 million shoppable videos.

Fabian Ouwehand, founder of social commerce company Socialscale.ai, compared its content to “little billboards you see along the road out of the corner of your eye.”

AI can imitate and iterate these creators’ clever videos that use similar scripts about flash sales and price drops in short periods. These AI-generated product videos are increasingly appearing in the feed as TikTok’s automated ads system, GMV Max, displays them. They can be lucrative: One AI video creator generated tens of thousands of dollars in product sales, according to a screenshot of his affiliate profile seen by Business Insider.

The rise of AI posts is starting to reshape the face of the TikTok Store ecosystem. A TikTok Shop employee said it had become a “hot topic” internally.

Some brands are now using AI to recreate multiple versions of an influencer’s post that performed well, three Shop marketers said. Others are using the technology to publish hundreds of times a month without having to pay creators or send them free samples, they said.

However, AI influencers can provoke negative reactions, leading some brands to opt out of using generative AI altogether. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that vacuum and blender machine maker SharkNinja had banned creators from using AI for its affiliate program.

Ashley Wright, CEO of TikTok Shop’s Social Tale agency, said some brands are “happy” to use AI if it brings them more sales, while others worry it could damage their reputation.

Many brands still prefer human creators with established followers and influence, especially when trying to generate product awareness rather than making a hard sell.

“We use AI tools to basically test what works and what doesn’t, and then we double down with a real creator for the concepts that are working,” said Anish Dalal, an executive at social commerce and marketing firm Third. “If it really works well with a synthetic creator, it will work even better with a real creator.”

The debate over generative AI has gone far beyond TikTok. Marketers on social platforms like Meta are struggling to strike the right balance between using AI to improve workflow efficiency and avoiding misleading ads.

AI continues to discourage many viewers

Today, the main obstacle to generative AI on TikTok is that the videos often veer into the uncanny valley, as synthetic characters with small, computer-generated voices try to sell things.

In one post, for example, an AI-generated influencer with coiffed blonde hair donned a hooded shirt to show how his soft collar was made of a material with “a good amount of stretch.”

Other AI Shop videos show products being used in ways that appear to defy real-world physics. In a series of posts seen by Business Insider over the past few months, synthetic avatars used power washers and propane torches, pet brushes, and microfiber dusters to spotlessly clean their driveways, pets, and air conditioning vents in seconds.

Even in cases where AI videos are not tagged, users still notice it.

“I’ve never seen green grass burn like that. Stupid AI,” one user commented on a video of a driveway being quickly weeded with a propane torch.

“It’s good, but not that good,” another user wrote.

Bad AI can create quality problems in the market

TikTok’s ability to maintain its engaging video stream is important to its long-term success as it fights for sales in the highly competitive US e-commerce industry.

The company has become a formidable e-commerce player since launching in the US in 2023, reaching more than $23 billion in US sales this year, according to a forecast from EMARKETER, Business Insider’s sister company. Its sales in the United States are still far from those of Amazon, which according to EMARKETER will exceed $500 billion this year. Its advantage over incumbents like Amazon or Walmart is its army of influencers.

Market quality is not easy in the age of AI. In November, Nicolas Waldmann, who leads TikTok Shop’s experience and governance external affairs team, told Business Insider that some fraudulent sellers were using generative AI to create fake storefronts for products that didn’t actually exist.

AI-generated videos could also create legal problems for brands that sell real products, said Robert Freund, an advertising and e-commerce lawyer. Beyond potentially misleading viewers about a product’s capabilities, having synthetic influencers claim to have used a product could run counter to the FTC’s requirement that advertising spokespersons offer “honest opinions” in testimonials, he said.

Freund said that with AI, “it’s much easier to create misleading content at scale, intentionally or not.”

Recently, governing bodies such as the European Union and the state of New York have developed laws requiring brands to disclose when synthetic characters are used in advertisements. TikTok, which did not respond to requests for comment, wrote in its seller documentation that generative AI is allowed as long as the videos are tagged, do not misrepresent a product or imitate a real person, and respect intellectual property rights.

More top brands can adopt generative AI videos as the technology improves.

“Why spend so much money, time and effort to get anything? [user-generated content] “Can it be done when AI can do it for a tenth of the cost?” said Ouwehand of Socialscale.ai. “It’s a huge opportunity for businesses.”