Why AI Ads Fall Flat — And How to Fix Them for Just $12

AdWeek just reported something that every marketer should pay attention to: people’s trust in story content drops by nearly 50% when an article seems to be AI-generated. And ads that appear to be generated by AI are associated with a 14% lower purchase intent than ads that look human-made.

I call this the "Adele effect" and it is seriously impacting ad agencies, brands, and content creators.

Adele famously does not use autotune. Listen to Easy on Me, Adele's 2021 blockbuster, and you'll hear short sequences where she's just slightly off key— maybe by half a note. It doesn't last long, but it unconsciously reveals that this achingly beautiful song was song by an honest to goodness, real human being. The great Frank Sinatra was also known to drift off key occasionally. He and Brazilian bossa nova singer Antonio Carlos Jobim even wrote a song about it — Off Key (Desafinado) — poking fun at singers like themselves who were imperfect, but also beautifully human.

Why AI Feels "Off" to Us

By now, you've seen AI-generated videos. They are fairly easy to spot because of their perfection: they lack the little off-key oddness of actual human beings. They’re easy to spot because of their perfection: they lack the little off-key quirks of actual humans. The same goes for faces — scientists have shown that perfectly symmetrical faces can feel unnervingly unnatural, even if sometimes they’re more attractive.

The same is true in advertising. Sometimes an AI-generated ad is compelling. Sometimes it’s… just weird. That's the line content creators who use AI tools need to walk: making compelling ads that have enough humanity to avoid the aversion of the uncanny valley. This includes images, videos, and AI-generated voices.

Perfectly perfect is not perfectly persuasive.

Guessing Is Not a Strategy

And, of course, guessing is not a strategy. Content that drives people to take an action must be evaluated by the brain as valuable. If an ad is even slightly off-putting, its neural value — the brain’s unconscious assessment of how much it matters — to humans who are making purchase decisions will drop. In the extreme, people can consciously identify weird ads, but what does a "little bit weird" really mean in measurable terms?

Rather than guess, we suggest AI content creators measure the actual emotional impact of ads on real humans using Immersion's distributed neuroscience technology, Value Measurement.

The $12 Fix for AI Ads

Immersion is super easy, highly accurately predictor of sales revenue from ads (see our BBDO case study to learn more), and you can do this for $12 using the Premium version of Immersion's app SIX.

Here’s how:

Create rough versions of your ads.
Email or text the QR code from SIX to 35 fans, colleagues, or even your accounting team.
If they don’t have SIX, they’ll be prompted to download the free version.
The rough ads will play on their phones, while SIX measures their unconscious responses through any of the many smartwatches and we support (Apple Watch, Whoop, Samsung, etc).

As the brain data roll in, you’ll see which ad delivers the highest Immersion Value Score — our patented 0–100 measure of how much value the brain assigns to an experience. That’s your winner.

Ready to create your first invite? This video breaks it down:

Make It Even Better

Want to make a really killer ad spot?

Take your highest Immersion Value Score ad.
Edit it based on feedback.
Send it to a fresh group to see if you’ve actually improved it.

For a small extra fee of $10 per person measured, you can even purchase a detailed report with second-by-second Value data showing exactly where your ad captures — or loses — your audience’s attention and emotional connection.

Stop Relying on 'Likes' — See What Really Moves People

We say "liking-smiking" because we don't care if people like your ad. We've shown repeatedly that what people say they like doesn't predict meaningful ad outcomes. Our business is to help you make more money by selling more of what you advertise, full stop. f you want to reliably create sales bumps, you have to measure what matters — and that’s Value.

Download SIX now and try the free version to discover what your brain loves most, every second of the day. And, if you want to be as successful as Adele and Frank Sinatra, upgrade to SIX Premium and get the intel you need to influence humans and move markets.

Don't worry, your AI will forgive you.