Why can’t TikTok identify AI generated ads when I can?

I’ve been struggling to tell whether the ads appearing in my TikTok feeds have been made with generative AI tools. As someone who spends a great deal of time scrutinizing images and videos for the usual “tells” that something was synthetically generated, some of the promotions I’ve seen have definitely sparked suspicion. For several weeks, I didn’t see any examples with the AI disclosure required by TikTok’s advertising policies, however, so I had no way of knowing for sure.

Why can’t TikTok identify AI generated ads when I can?

Companies that are supposedly pro-transparency can’t even be honest with each other, let alone the rest of us. What irks me is that someone knows for sure if the content is AI-generated. They’re just not telling the rest of us. And if companies that claim to support AI-labelling initiatives actually want them to succeed, they should probably do something about that.

Take Samsung, for example. After slopping AI-generated videos across its social media channels, I started to notice ads teasing the Galaxy S26 Ultra’s privacy display feature appearing on my TikTok. Videos from what appears to be the same promotional campaign had been published to YouTube with disclosures in their collapsed descriptions that AI tools had been used to make them. By comparison, the TikTok ads gave no indication of whether AI had been used. Regular videos on Samsung’s TikTok accounts — those not actively promoted as ads — also lack AI disclosures, despite those same videos being labeled as AI-generated on YouTube.

It’s important to note that both Samsung and TikTok are members of the Content Authenticity Initiative, a group that aims to make content authenticity and transparency “scalable and accessible” by promoting the industry-wide adoption of C2PA. That means TikTok and Samsung supposedly share similar ideals regarding the labelling of AI content. If Samsung knowingly used AI to make its videos, it should have told TikTok when the ads were submitted. If TikTok was informed, it should have made sure its users were aware, per the platform’s own advertising policies.

Advertisers on TikTok are only permitted to use content “significantly” edited or generated by AI if they make that known. That can be achieved by applying TikTok’s own AI label, or by adding a disclaimer, caption, watermark, or sticker of the advertiser’s choosing, according to the video platform’s business advertising policy.

So what happened? Samsung did not respond to my requests for comment. TikTok pointed me to its AI labeling requirements for advertisers and its C2PA partnership, but declined to provide an on-record statement on why Samsung’s AI-generated ads received a pass. I’m still in the dark regarding what step of this transparency process failed.

There is currently no trusted technological solution for reliably identifying AI-generated content, or even human-made content, at scale. I’ve spent plenty of time banging on about the flaws of authentication standards like C2PA Content Credentials, SynthID, and other provenance-based systems that try to inform users of how a piece of content was made — they need everyone to be on board to work effectively, and that simply isn’t happening. That’s a problem when people are struggling to know what’s real and what isn’t in this current geo-political landscape.

But that applies to online content generally, whereas advertising is a regulated industry that’s supposed to play by a different set of rules. Concerns around advertising transparency have prompted the EU, China, and South Korea to introduce labeling requirements for AI in promotional materials. Even companies that haven’t pledged to support AI transparency initiatives could risk future fines if they don’t get their act together.

If large online platforms like TikTok and advertisers like Samsung can’t be honest with each other about AI usage in such a regulated environment, well, then anyone can advertise whatever nonsense they want. This is a simple two-way system that should already be robustly implemented and enforced without needing people like me to scrutinize every ad in their feeds.