The research

Real beats rendered.

Why real, Canadian, human content matters more for your brand now than ever.

The flood

Your customers are drowning in AI content.

Generative AI made content cheap. That also made it everywhere, and people have noticed.

52%

of new articles published online are now written by AI.

Graphite, 2025 · 65,000 articles
86%

of consumers have come across AI-generated content on social media.

Clutch, 2026 · 601 consumers
47%

of Canadians see deepfakes at least once a week.

The Dais, 2024 · 2,472 Canadians
76%

say it’s getting to the point where they can’t tell if an image is real.

Getty Images, 2024 · 25 countries
The trust penalty

AI can win a click. It loses when people notice.

One study found unlabeled, fully AI-made ads actually got more clicks. The problem starts when customers suspect it, and more of them are looking.

~50%

drop in reader trust when people suspect content was made by AI.

Raptive, 2025 · 3,000 adults
−31%

in clicks when an ad is disclosed as AI-generated, compared with human-made ads.

NYU & Emory University, 2025
53%

of consumers are less likely to buy from brands that use AI in their social media content.

Clutch, 2026
52%

engage less with content once they suspect it was written by AI.

Bynder, 2024 · 2,000 adults

Brand ads placed next to suspected AI content also saw 14% lower purchase consideration (Raptive, 2025).

Real people win

Faces, stories and proof you can’t fake.

+38%

more likes and 32% more comments for Instagram photos with a real human face.

Georgia Tech & Yahoo Labs · 1.1 million photos
98%

of consumers say authentic images and videos are pivotal in establishing trust.

Getty Images, 2024

And the mood is shifting: 52% of Americans now say they’re more concerned than excited about AI, up from 37% in 2021 (Pew Research Center).

70%

of Canadians trust Canadian brands. Only 40% trust foreign ones (Edelman, 2025).

The Canadian advantage

Canadian and real is a competitive edge.

85%

of Canadians say they’ve swapped or plan to swap U.S. products for Canadian ones.

Angus Reid, 2025
80%+

of Canadians prefer businesses that give back to their communities.

Abacus Data, 2024
Michael Girolametto
Why I’m offering this

I wish I’d had this when I was growing my firm.

When I was building my accounting firm, I knew I needed real marketing, but a real athlete, a real story or a real face for the brand was never something a small business like mine could afford.

Now anyone can generate content, and the data says customers are tuning it out. What they still trust is real: a real Canadian, training for real, with real photos and videos. That’s the gap I want to fill for small businesses, at a price that makes sense.

See the three levels
Put the research to work: see the Idea Library →
Sources
  1. Graphite, analysis of 65,000 English-language articles, reported by Binghamton University, 2025. Link
  2. Clutch, consumer survey on AI and social media (601 consumers), August 2026. Link
  3. The Dais, Human or AI? Evaluating Labels on AI-Generated Social Media Content (2,472 Canadians), 2024. Link
  4. Getty Images, Building Trust in the Age of AI (VisualGPS, 30,000+ adults, 25 countries), 2024. Link
  5. Raptive, AI content and trust study (3,000 U.S. adults), July 2025. Link
  6. NYU and Emory University field experiment on AI-generated ads, 2025. Link
  7. Bynder, AI vs. human-made content study (2,000 adults, U.S. and U.K.), 2024. Link
  8. Bakhshi, Shamma & Gilbert, Faces Engage Us, Georgia Tech and Yahoo Labs (1.1 million Instagram photos), 2014. Link
  9. Pew Research Center, Americans’ views of AI, 2026. Link
  10. Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report: Brand Trust, From We to Me, 2025. Link
  11. Angus Reid, Canadians and U.S. products, 2025; Abacus Data for Imagine Canada, 2024.