TRUTH: people value what they know most - other people

As AI-generated content becomes not only more prevalent but also more indistinguishable from content generated by human hand, our survey highlights that many consumers are grappling with questions of truth  of the authenticity, provenance and the potential for distortion of the content itself and what we value in it.

Our survey results show that human-created content is valued in ways that AI-created is not, or perhaps never can be. To ignore what this may mean is a risky strategy for companies and creators.

People value authenticity - and that means human

Consumers prefer human-created to technology-created content because they believe it’s more authentic, original, and reflective of the human experience.

In our survey, respondents made it clear: the human element in content creation is a major consideration to what they value. When asked about content created by human beings compared to that created by AI or computers, 81% of respondents chose at least one valuable reason to prize the human creation higher.  The main reasons range from its authenticity (46%) or originality (42%) to the value of a personal connection to the creator’s own experience (41%). 41% of respondents don’t rationalise a reason but simply just prefer to know that a human being is behind the work.

Placing high value on human authenticity or provenance indicates consumers don’t value purely technical or functional aspects of the content.  It is a preference for where content has a ‘human’ in the process and product itself.  This is reflected across age groups, including 16-24 year olds – who interestingly are the most inclined to consider human-created content more likely to be creative or innovative.

When asked to choose between human and AI-generated creative works, respondents consistently favour the human touch. Most people would choose a music playlist curated by a human (52%) over a ‘flawless’ AI-generated one (29%), even if they enjoyed fewer songs from the human. Who says the ‘album’ may be dead? Similarly, almost three times as many respondents would prefer the work of a human photographer (64%) to a cheaper but equally beautiful AI-created image (22%). For many, human involvement in content creation matters deeply to consumers, even if that comes with human flaws.

Some interesting differences are revealed when we dig deeper, not least by generation. It may not be surprising that the 55+ age group shows the strongest preference for simply "knowing a human made it" (51%) and twice as many in this cohort are also not willing to unknowingly consume AI-generated content compared to 25-34 year olds (40% vs 20%).

It may also not be surprising that between 2024 and 2025 we saw that younger professionals, particularly those aged 25-44, have become more comfortable with AI content, while prioritising human traits such as authenticity or personal connection declined by around 10%.

While overall concerns about AI-generated content are universal, the intensity varies by region. German and Dutch respondents consistently show more openness to AI-generated content, less frequently citing human value factors (eg less than 30% of respondents from Germany cited authenticity compared to over 50% from Australia).

What could be the reason for people placing differential value on the human touch? A possible perspective is that this preference stems from a sense of familiarity with what they know or with technology in general. For example, the survey shows that those respondents who ‘do not work’ or are in older age groups are much more likely to place a higher value on content simply because ‘I just prefer to know a human made it.’ They are also twice as likely than average to ‘not value anything in particular about content created by AI or computers.’

Perhaps the most revealing insights come not from what people say they value, but from what they would actually choose when given options. In news, 58% of respondents said they prefer human journalists to the advantages of automation.  People aren't just looking for facts - they're placing value on human judgment, context, and that a human may reflect news through human eyes.

For reviews and recommendations, 63% prefer human produced reviews.  Even if algorithms can aggregate and synthesise, the preference seems to reflect a desire for the relatable experience. Consumers don't just want to know if something is, on average or aggregate, good or bad – they want to understand how someone else may have experienced it. For better, worse or just different.

The same appears true in relation to the creative arts.  As one respondent noted, "When an artist creates their work usually there's an emotion in it that I personally don't believe can be replicated by AI." In short, that what may purport to be or reflect human experience, has the essential of a human experience within it.

Yet can people really tell? When sampled via our survey, only 30% of respondents who say they value human content for its authenticity and originality could correctly identify human vs AI-generated images. That’s less than random.  How can people discern the value they place on what is inside the content, if it can’t be seen from the outside?

AI familiarity breeds acceptance, but not at the cost of the human in the creative process

While consumers value human creativity, their perceptions of AI evolve with exposure. Familiarity breeds acceptance, and those who regularly use AI tools are significantly more likely to trust its outputs.

Our survey shows that 77% of respondents who ‘Regularly use AI tools’ do view AI as a force for good. Additionally, 88% of this same cohort ‘fully’ or ‘somewhat’ trust AI to produce non-fiction content, a genre which should better lend itself to technology verification perhaps, compared to only a 51% average across total survey respondents.

In 2024, 42% of UK respondents expressed concerns about AI, describing its reasoning and decision-making as ‘unknowable’. By 2025, with AI increasingly in the news and society, this had declined to 32%. Similarly, in the US, the percentage of respondents with ‘no concerns’ about consuming AI-generated content grew from 5% to 13%. As we have seen greater discussion or awareness of AI, so perceptions of concerns have reduced.

However, greater familiarity doesn’t equate to unequivocal or universal acceptance. Despite relatively high trust levels among the ‘most familiar with AI’ cohorts, these same individuals still place value on human-generated over AI-generated content. In this regard, even AI adopters reflect the rest of the respondents, placing high value on authenticity (54%) and originality (55%) as valuable traits of human-generated content.

For a significant proportion of respondents, the idea of AI content becoming all-conquering or having no human ingredient is a red line. 22% of 16-24 year olds said they would refuse to consume purely AI-generated content under any circumstances, rising to 46% for the 55+ age group.

Consumers are concerned that AI distorts both human truths and work

Misuse, fake media, and job displacement are key concerns over how AI is being applied in the creative, media, and communications sectors.

As much as AI presents exciting opportunities in content creation, it also raises significant concerns.

In our survey, 46% of respondents are worried about the potential misuse of AI, especially in areas like fake media and deepfakes, where technology can be used to distort or misrepresent a reality. 42% said that it was a concern that AI-generated content could be passed off as real. These concerns are not hypothetical; they are having real world implications for journalism, for copyrights and for public discourse. If consumers cannot place trust in what they see, hear or read, what happens to a world built on foundations of knowledge, science and human behaviour?

Beyond the threat of misinformation, there is another concern reflected in the survey: job displacement. 39% of survey respondents expressed a clear concern that AI could replace the jobs of those in the creative industry.  In a similar vein, respondents who work in the arts, creative or legal industries are much more likely than those who work in other industries to value content created by humans because the creator gets paid for it.

While technology offers amazing efficiency or creative opportunities, when consumers place value on the human ingredient, so job losses to the machines reflect potential long-term impacts on creative economies. As new skills will surely blossom with the new technology, how do companies preserve the essential creative skills that will be part of this new, bionic workforce?

Over the two surveys in 2024 and 2025, we do see some evolution and perhaps a growing sophistication in how people think about AI’s manifestation in content creation.  Rather than wholesale rejection or acceptance of AI, respondents may be developing acuity about where and how AI can add value. The increase in acceptance of AI-compiled reviews (+4%) and multi-source news (+2%) may suggest recognition of AI's strengths in aggregation and analysis, while still valuing human insight for interpretation and meaning-making. One to watch for future surveys.

Conclusion: as we embrace AI, human truth matters more than ever

One can read the survey data as revealing something fundamental about human nature. That, even as we embrace technological advancement, we continue to seek authentic human connection and experience through content.

The data supporting a preference for human-created content, even if modestly lower in 2025 versus 2024, signal a value in the authenticity and provenance of content, albeit not with a rejection of technological value.  We see nuance and perhaps even a learning to appreciate different kinds of value in different contexts and content.

For creative, communication or consumer organisations navigating this landscape, the message is clear: success lies in harnessing AI's capabilities while preserving the essential human elements that give content and experience its deeper, human meaning and resonance. Technology should amplify human experience, roles and qualities, not become a substitute for them. 

The creative industries and technology players have some big questions to address in the months ahead. Addressing these to get good answers now may be critical to how companies make smarter choices and thrive in the new, bionic human-AI world:

• How are you preserving the ‘truth’ of human experience, creativity and jobs as you invest in this wave of AI technological advance?
• Is your approach complementing or substituting? What happens when your customers find out – will it be good news or not?
• As AI adoption and acceptance grows, do you understand what your customers will value about your products or brand?