AI ads match human creative performance, study

A major study from Columbia University, Harvard University, Technical University of Munich, and Carnegie Mellon University shows that AI-generated ads perform on par with human-made creative in driving consumer engagement. Taboola, a global advertising platform, collaborated on the research by analyzing hundreds of thousands of live ads.

The study, AI Ads That Work: How AI Creative Stacks Up Against Humans, examined more than 500 million impressions and 3 million clicks across Taboola’s Realize platform, providing a large-scale view of generative AI’s (GenAI) effectiveness in real-world campaigns.

AI ads that feel human drive results

The research found AI-generated ads achieved comparable engagement to human ads. Average click-through rates (CTR) for AI ads were 0.76 percent versus 0.65 percent for human-made ads, though the gap narrowed under strict statistical controls.

Oded Netzer, Vice Dean for Research, Columbia Business School: "Taboola's platform provided us with a literal gold mine of real-world data that is simply unavailable in a lab setting. By analyzing over 500 million impressions, we were able to move past the hype of GenAI and uncover its real impact in large scale settings. Our findings prove that when AI is used to enhance human cues—like the trust found in a human face—it doesn't just match human performance; it often sets a new ceiling for engagement."

Human faces increase trust

AI-generated ads that avoided looking artificial achieved the highest engagement, outperforming both human ads and AI ads perceived as clearly machine-made. The presence of a large, clear human face emerged as a key factor in creating trust. According to the study, AI ads were more likely to include these cues than human-made creative, in part due to Taboola’s best practices and policy guidelines.

The study also found that AI-generated visuals maintained or improved CTR without reducing downstream conversion rates, suggesting advertisers can scale production without trading quality for efficiency. Early adoption of AI ads was seen in the food, drink, and personal finance sectors.

Sibling ad comparison

Researchers applied a quasi-experimental "sibling ads" methodology, comparing AI and human ads created by the same advertiser for the same campaign on the same day. This approach isolated the impact of GenAI while controlling for variables such as audience targeting, timing, and landing pages.

The full report can be accessed here

www.columbia.edu

www.taboola.com

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