By Rich Raddon, Zefr
AI has changed content creation overnight. What once required time, skill or a production budget can now be spun up in seconds.
That’s led to an explosion of low-quality, made-for-advertising (MFA) content, not just across obscure websites but on social platforms like TikTok, YouTube and Meta.
For years, MFA was a mostly web-based problem: cheap, SEO-bait sites built to farm impressions. Social media marketers have always had concerns about monetizing some types of user-generated content, but the channel has been – for the most part – free of the MFA model.
Now, generative AI has supercharged that model, and it’s infecting social media feeds and vertical video platforms. With automated tools, bad actors can pump out thousands of videos a day, tailored to algorithmic incentives, at near-zero cost.
On social platforms, these videos blend seamlessly into feeds, making them harder to detect and block. That’s a problem for advertisers who rely on programmatic pipes that don’t always distinguish between authentic creator content and automated filler.
Why this matters for advertisers
MFA moving to social isn’t just a brand safety concern; it’s a waste and trust problem.
Ad budgets that should be funding meaningful creator ecosystems are instead being siphoned into AI-generated junk designed to keep viewers scrolling instead of connecting. This leads to:
Social media is where the majority of digital ad dollars now flow. If MFA continues to spread on social channels unchecked, it could undermine the very environments brands depend on for reach and cultural relevance.
Platforms can’t solve it alone
Some social platforms are taking proactive steps against this growing issue, building new detection systems and experimenting with labeling AI content. But they’re up against the speed and volume of generative AI. And the economics of AI slop are simply too attractive: infinite content at minimal cost.
Get our editors’ roundup delivered to your inbox every weekday.
Advertisers need to step up by defining what appropriate AI content looks like for their brands. There’s a distinction between worthwhile AI content and MFA. This distinction also applies to AI content on social media.
MFA is engineered to exploit algorithms and ad systems while prioritizing monetization at the expense of meaning, artistry and audience connection. While generative AI can aid these practices, it can also be used for legitimate creative expression that enriches culture, rather than degrading it.
The challenge for advertisers is to identify where AI actually serves creativity and community. Each brand should set hard limits on what it will accept, rather than leaving it up to social platforms to come up with a “one size fits all” approach.
Here are three steps advertisers should take now to protect their budgets from waste as AI brings MFA to social media:
A familiar inflection point
Digital advertising has been here before. Programmatic’s early days were plagued by low-quality supply, opaque reporting and misplaced trust. Standards eventually caught up, but not before marketers spent years cleaning up the mess.
The rise of AI-generated content is another inflection point. The difference now is nuance: not every AI-generated video on social media is a threat, but MFA and AI spam are.
The advertisers who act early, with clearer definitions, stronger partnerships and smarter verification will be the ones who preserve consumer trust, protect their budgets and thrive in an AI-native social media ecosystem.
“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media.
Follow Zefr and AdExchanger on LinkedIn.
For more articles featuring Rich Raddon, click here.
Ad industry experts call out trends to watch in 2026 and separate the real AI use cases having an impact today from the AI hype they heard at CES.
Fraud is eating into retail profits. A new startup called Pinch AI just launched with $5 million in funding to fight back.
On Wednesday, retail and CPG data company SPINS added a new piece with its acquisition of MikMak, a click-to-buy ad tech and analytics startup that helps optimize their commerce media.
Believe it or not, car oil change service company Valvoline is in the midst of a fascinating retail marketing transformation.
Agents, streamers and robots, oh my! Live from the C-Space campus at the Aria Casino in Las Vegas, our team breaks down the most interesting ad tech trends we saw at CES this year.
From afar, it looks like Google had a rough year in antitrust court. But zoom in a bit and it becomes clear that the past year went about as well as Google could have hoped for.
Ad industry experts call out trends to watch in 2026 and separate the real AI use cases having an impact today from the AI hype they heard at CES.
Linkby, which connects brands with publisher content that advertisers pay for based on reader engagement, announced its $15 million Series B on Tuesday.
Retail’s Big Show, the annual NRF event in New York City, was big on agentic commerce, unsurprisingly, as well as influencer and creator marketing, which was an eye-opener.
Returning to the news desk after a year away from CTV beat reporting is like discovering a time capsule with the industry’s core dilemmas. One thing that has changed, however, is the CTV industry’s infatuation with agentic AI.
Traffic is down, but publisher content is still driving purchases. Partnerize’s new attribution model lets publishers see what’s working and strike fair compensation deals.
Join the AdExchanger Community
AdExchanger is where marketers, agencies, publishers and tech companies go for the latest information on the trends that are transforming digital media and marketing, from data, privacy, identity and AI to commerce, CTV, measurement and mobile.
Convergent TV World
March 5-6, 2026
The Times Center
New York, NY
Learn More
© 2026 Access Intelligence, LLC – All Rights Reserved
