By Megan Geyer, October 30, 2026
AI-generated product advertisements are becoming more convincing. Here's how digital inclusion professionals can help community members look beyond the marketing and make informed purchasing decisions.
A product appears in someone's Instagram feed. It looks amazing, the price seems reasonable, and the video makes it look like the perfect solution to a problem they didn't even know they had.
But is the product real? Will it work as advertised? And how can someone tell before spending their money?
As artificial intelligence makes it easier to create convincing product images and videos, these questions are becoming increasingly relevant.
At Wright to Learn, we're hearing questions like these from community members:
Is it safe to order something advertised on TikTok or Instagram if the advertisement was made with AI?
How can I avoid getting scammed when shopping online?
How do I know whether a product is actually real?
These are important questions, and they don't always have straightforward answers.
An advertisement created with AI isn't automatically fraudulent. But a convincing advertisement isn't proof that a product is legitimate, either.
For those of us working in digital inclusion, this presents an opportunity to help people develop the critical thinking skills they need to navigate an increasingly complicated digital marketplace.
Looking Beyond the Advertisement
Content creators such as HopeScope have highlighted examples of products that look impressive in online advertisements but turn out to be disappointing, misleading, or entirely different from what was promised.
In some cases, consumers have purchased products only to discover that the seller has disappeared, leaving them with little recourse for a return or refund.
As AI-generated images and videos become more realistic, simply looking closely at an advertisement may no longer be enough to determine whether a product is legitimate.
That's why, at Wright to Learn, we encourage looking at multiple sources of information rather than relying on any single clue.
Here are six considerations we can share with community members to help them evaluate products advertised using AI.
6 Ways to Help Community Members Evaluate AI-Advertised Products
1. Choose Established Marketplaces When Possible
Social media advertisements can direct shoppers to unfamiliar websites or third-party sellers. Sometimes, those sellers are difficult to contact after a purchase, particularly when a customer wants to return an item or request a refund.
Established marketplaces such as Amazon and Etsy generally have published buyer protection and dispute-resolution processes. While these protections vary and don't guarantee a refund, they may offer consumers additional options when something goes wrong.
It's also worth reminding learners that a recognizable marketplace doesn't automatically mean every seller or product on that platform is trustworthy.
Etsy, for example, has seen growing concerns about AI-generated product images and listings that may not accurately represent what a customer will receive. Shopping through an established marketplace doesn't mean avoiding AI-generated advertising or misleading product descriptions altogether.
The advantage is less about the absence of questionable products and more about the protections and processes the marketplace provides. These can include standardized customer reviews, established dispute-resolution procedures, and payment systems that don't require shoppers to share their payment information directly with an individual seller.
Those protections aren't foolproof, but they can offer an additional layer of security compared with purchasing directly from an unfamiliar website.
The goal is to understand who is actually selling the product and what protections are available before purchasing.
2. Look Closely at Product Reviews
Reviews can provide valuable information, but they're not always reliable.
AI-generated reviews are becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish from those written by real customers. Awkward phrasing, repetitive language, or unusual wording may be worth noticing, but these aren't reliable indicators on their own.
Encourage community members to look for patterns:
Are all the reviews overwhelmingly positive?
Do multiple reviews use nearly identical language?
Are there detailed reviews describing actual experiences with the product?
Do reviewers include photos showing what the product actually looks like?
Can independent reviews be found somewhere other than the seller's website?
Established marketplaces may offer additional tools for evaluating reviews. For example, Amazon's Verified Purchase label indicates that Amazon has verified the purchase through its platform. While that doesn't guarantee a review is authentic or unbiased, it provides another useful piece of information.
Photos uploaded by customers can be especially helpful. They give shoppers an opportunity to compare the product as advertised with what someone actually received.
A lack of critical reviews can also be a reason to investigate further, especially when other warning signs are present.
3. Look for Information Beyond the Advertisement
An impressive video is only one piece of information about a product.
Before purchasing, encourage community members to look for additional details:
Are there photos or videos showing real people using the product?
Are the product's dimensions, materials, and specifications clearly listed?
Can the same product be found on other websites?
Is there independent information confirming that the product exists and works as advertised?
What do people say about the seller or website elsewhere online?
That last question is particularly important—and offers an easy, repeatable strategy that community members can use whenever they're considering an unfamiliar online purchase.
Try searching for the website's name along with phrases like "is this site a scam," "reviews," or "complaints."
For example, searching for "Is [website name] a scam?" may lead to Reddit discussions, consumer complaints, or other independent sources where people share their experiences.
These sources aren't automatically trustworthy, either, but they can offer perspectives that aren't controlled by the seller.
The goal is to help people develop the habit of looking beyond the website that's trying to make the sale.
4. Ask Whether the Product Seems Plausible
Sometimes an advertisement makes a product look almost too good to be true.
Imagine an inflatable pool float shaped like a six-foot-tall football helmet, complete with a table in the center, supposedly capable of comfortably supporting five adults.
Now imagine that product being advertised for less than $50.
Could such a product exist? Perhaps. But the combination of an extraordinary claim and an unusually low price deserves closer scrutiny.
And sometimes, the product does exist and does arrive—but looks or functions very differently from what the advertisement promised.
Online marketplaces such as Temu and Shein have been the subject of numerous "what I ordered vs. what I got" videos, in which shoppers compare advertised products with the items they actually received. These examples can illustrate the gap between marketing images and real-world products.
For digital inclusion professionals, these videos can also make useful teaching tools. Consider finding a few examples to share with learners and inviting them to identify differences between the advertised product and the delivered item.
What details might they have looked for before purchasing? What questions could they have asked?
Encourage community members to consider whether a product's size, features, price, and advertised capabilities make sense together.
Something that seems implausible isn't necessarily a scam, but it's a good reason to investigate before buying.
5. Recognize Sales Tactics That Create Urgency
Countdown clocks. Limited-time offers. Messages claiming that only a few items remain.
These tactics are designed to encourage quick decisions, often before someone has had an opportunity to investigate the product or seller.
Of course, legitimate retailers use sales promotions, too. The presence of a countdown clock doesn't automatically indicate a scam.
But it does provide a useful opportunity to talk about how advertising influences our decisions.
One simple strategy is to wait 24 hours before making an unfamiliar or unexpected purchase.
That extra time can help someone move beyond the initial excitement and evaluate whether the product is legitimate, affordable, and something they actually want.
6. Consider the Potential Consequences of a Purchase
Not all disappointing purchases carry the same consequences.
Spending $10 on a novelty item that doesn't live up to its advertisement is very different from spending $800 on an aquarium that may not look or function as promised.
And financial loss isn't the only consideration.
Food products, supplements, and other items that could affect someone's health or safety deserve particular caution, especially when purchased from unfamiliar sellers.
Product safety standards and oversight can vary, and an attractive AI-generated advertisement provides no assurance that an item is safe.
Encourage community members to consider both the likelihood that something could go wrong and the potential consequences if it does.
A useful question to ask is: If this product isn't what I expected—or isn't safe to use—what could I stand to lose?
The goal isn't to discourage people from making purchases. It's to help them make informed choices about which risks they're comfortable taking.
Building Digital Confidence, Not Just Spotting Scams
As AI-generated advertising continues to evolve, teaching people to recognize specific visual clues will only get us so far.
An image that looks suspicious today may be nearly indistinguishable from a real photograph tomorrow. And increasingly, even legitimate businesses use AI-generated imagery to advertise real products. A furniture retailer, for example, might use AI to show a real sofa in a beautifully furnished living room that doesn't actually exist.
That doesn't necessarily make the advertisement fraudulent. But it does mean that seeing something in a convincing image isn't the same as verifying what you're purchasing.
That's why we believe digital skills education needs to go beyond identifying individual warning signs.
At Wright to Learn, our goal isn't simply to give learners a checklist of things to avoid. It's to help them build the confidence and critical thinking skills to approach unfamiliar digital situations, ask useful questions, and make decisions for themselves.
When someone encounters a product advertised through AI, they may not be able to determine with certainty whether the advertisement is authentic or the product is legitimate.
But they can learn to investigate the seller, compare information from multiple sources, consider the risks, and recognize when something deserves a closer look.
Those are transferable skills that extend well beyond online shopping.
And that's an important part of digital resilience: helping people develop strategies they can continue using even as the digital world changes around them.
Keep the Conversation Going
Are questions about AI-generated advertising coming up in your work, too? Have you found an approach that helps community members think more critically about what they're seeing online?
We'd love to hear what's working for you—and what challenges you're encountering.
Share your experience with us and help keep the conversation going.
Additional Resources
FTC's August 2026 Guidance: Consumer guidance on evaluating online advertisements, shopping safely, and recognizing scams. [Insert the specific August 2026 FTC resource referenced by the author.]
HopeScope on YouTube: Videos exploring products advertised online, including examples of misleading or questionable AI-generated product advertising.
Wright to Learn Instructor, Megan Geyer, is a social scientist, librarian, and digital skills educator, Megan combines research and public service experience to make digital tools practical, accessible, and useful in everyday life.
