Abstract: Generative AI has revolutionized advertising production, yet a pervasive consumer complaint—“AI flavor”—has emerged. Consumers spontaneously perceive ads as AI-generated based on stylistic features such as unnaturally smooth visuals, mechanical language, rigid movements, and emotional shallowness, even when those ads were human-made. Existing research, however, relies almost exclusively on explicit AI disclosure paradigms and overlooks this natural inference process, while also emphasizing negative reactions without considering potential positive outcomes. To address these gaps, we introduce AI Flavor in Advertising (AIFIA), defined as the degree to which consumers perceive an ad as exhibiting prototypical AI-generated characteristics, regardless of its actual source. We develop an integrative framework with three studies on conceptualization, judgment cues, and double-edged brand effects.
Study 1 formalizes AIFIA as a multidimensional construct comprising stiffness and fantasticality, both grounded in perceived deviation from consumers’ cognitive representations of advertising. Stiffness reflects downward deviation from naturalness—visual artifacts, mechanical language, rigid actions, and emotional void—that violates expectations of human-crafted authenticity. Fantasticality denotes upward deviation, wherein hyper-realistic or surreal visuals exceed everyday experience and appear achievable only through AI, thus tapping into consumers’ beliefs about AI’s “magical” creative power. Either dimension can independently trigger AIFIA. Following scale development protocols, we generate items via literature review, netnography, interviews, and expert evaluation, then establish validity through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. AIFIA is distinguished from advertising falsity, AI hallucination, and AI salience, clarifying its unique status as a consumer-centric perceptual variable.
Study 2 identifies judgment cues and moderators. Drawing on cue diagnosticity and consistency theories, we propose objective cues—smooth visuals, mechanical language, rigid movements, detail errors, and saturated colors—and subjective cues—illogical structure, insufficient creativity, and emotional absence. These cues signal AI involvement when they diverge from expected naturalness. Their effects are moderated by AI literacy and critical thinking: high levels amplify cue-AIFIA relationships by enhancing sensitivity and analytical processing, whereas low levels attenuate them. Beyond isolated cue effects, we propose using fsQCA to examine configurational patterns, recognizing that real-world AIFIA judgments often arise from specific combinations of cues rather than any single attribute, an approach that can reveal multiple equifinal pathways to strong AIFIA perceptions.
Study 3 articulates the double-edged effects on brand perceptions. High AIFIA reduces brand authenticity, perceived brand engagement, and increases homogenization—negative effects driven by cue inconsistency with consumers’ expectations of humanized, emotionally invested brand narratives. Simultaneously, high AIFIA enhances brand innovativeness, technological image, and rejuvenation—positive effects particularly when fantasticality dominates, as technical sophistication signals modernity and advanced capabilities. Two moderators shape these effects. AI disclosure interacts with AIFIA: when disclosure is present but AIFIA is low, inconsistency arises, mitigating negatives and amplifying positives; when no disclosure meets high AIFIA, inconsistency suggests deception, intensifying negatives and weakening positives. Brand personality also moderates: for sincere brands, high AIFIA (especially stiffness) conflicts with warmth, impairing perceptions; for exciting brands, high AIFIA (especially fantasticality) aligns with novelty, enhancing evaluations. Finally, advertising legitimacy—comprising intentional, strategic, and practical dimensions—mediates these moderated effects, as consumers assess whether the ad's purpose is credible, its strategy is coherent, and its execution is socially appropriate based on congruence between AIFIA and contextual signals; this legitimacy appraisal ultimately drives favorable or unfavorable brand inferences.
Theoretically, this research offers three innovations. It introduces and validates AIFIA, shifting from disclosure-based to perception-based research. It systematically delineates objective and subjective cues along with moderators, providing the first comprehensive account of AIFIA formation. It reveals the double-edged impact on brand perceptions, demonstrating divergent pathways and contextual dependencies, with legitimacy as the explanatory mechanism. These contributions open new research avenues at the intersection of AI technology, advertising, and consumer psychology, while offering actionable guidance for brand managers to strategically calibrate AI flavor—whether to amplify its modernizing appeal or attenuate its alienating effects—depending on brand positioning and disclosure decisions.

Key words: advertising, AI flavor in advertising, brand perception, cues theory, double-edged sword effect