Can customers tell if product photos are AI generated, and do they care?

What do Australian shoppers say about AI in advertising?

They are wary of it and doubt they can spot it. In two 2026 surveys of Australian adults, 72% said they were concerned about AI-generated content in ads, and only 34% felt confident they could tell when an ad was made with AI.

Sources: YouGov and Roy Morgan for Ad Standards. Both asked about advertising made mainly with AI, not about a real product shown in a generated room. Neither separates the two, so read them as a measure of how people react to AI they notice.

What gives an AI product photo away?

Small physical mistakes that a photographer would not make. Shoppers rarely name them, but they register that something is off, and that feeling attaches to the brand.

• Surfaces that are too smooth and even, with no wear, grain or dust
• Light on the product that comes from a different direction to the light in the room
• A product that floats, with no shadow where it meets the floor or the bench
• Text on a label or pack that is warped, misspelt or meaningless up close
• Rooms that do not add up: windows with nothing behind them, furniture that merges into the wall
• Hands with the wrong number of fingers, or fingers that melt into the product

Most of these tells sit in the scene, and each can be fixed by hand. The ones in the product itself, such as a changed colour, warped text or a missing part, are the ones that turn into complaints, because the customer sees the real thing on delivery and compares.

Do customers mind if the product is real but the room is generated?

What people object to is being misled. The Roy Morgan survey found the concern centred on AI's potential to mislead or deceive people with unrealistic or fake content, and a room scene around an accurate product does neither.

A generated room plays the same part as a set built for a photoshoot: it is a setting, and nobody expects the rug to come in the box. The product is what the customer pays for. Keep the product true to life and the setting believable, and the frame is doing what a good studio photo has always done.

Where it goes wrong is a claim the image cannot back up: a "customer photo" that was generated, a room described as a real home, or a product made to look better than the one that ships.

Should I tell customers my product photos are made with AI?

In Australia and New Zealand it is a brand decision rather than a legal one, as long as the images are accurate. A short, plain line in your FAQ or on the about page answers the question before anyone asks it.

The one thing never to do is describe an AI frame as something it is not, such as "shot in our studio" or "a customer's living room". The rules on disclosure, including the platforms that label AI ads themselves, are set out in do I have to disclose that my product photos or ads are AI generated?

How do I make AI product photos that customers trust?

Make the product exact and the scene physically right, then check every frame against the real thing before it goes live. Trust is decided when the parcel is opened, so accuracy matters more than any single scene.

• Change the setting, never the product
• Match the light on the product to the light in the room
• Give the product a real contact shadow and a believable size in the room
• Read every word on the label at full size
• Keep one look across the range, so the store feels like one brand
• Include at least one plain, clean frame where the product can be judged on its own