Why People Hate AI

0:08Sheena Butler-Young: Hello and welcome to The Debrief from the Business of Fashion where each week we delve into our most popular BOF professional stories with the correspondents who created them. I'm senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young. Since the earliest days of tools like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, AI has been defined by a kind of split-screen reaction. Excitement around speed, efficiency, and instant answers, alongside fears about job loss, creative erosion, and more recently, the technology's environmental toll. For a while, those tensions mostly played out in theory. Now they're playing out in the real world, and the reaction is getting harder to ignore.

0:46Sheena Butler-Young: We're seeing everything from viral backlash against brands using AI-generated imagery to more extreme reactions aimed at the tech leaders themselves. What was once a debate about capability has turned into something more visceral. a broader rejection of what AI represents. Today, I'm joined by BOF's Mark Bain and Haley Crawford to unpack why the backlash is intensifying and whether fashion can embrace AI without losing the very human touch that defines it. Mark, Haley, welcome to The Debrief. Hi, Sheena. Hi, Sheena. Thanks for having us. I'm so happy you guys are here. So, Mark, I want to start with you.

1:20Sheena Butler-Young: In your reporting, you point to a more significant uptick in negativity around AI. Can you talk to us about why you think the backlash reached a fever pitch in the last few months. Is there one particular factor or thing that happened that really explains why it's intensified so much? I don't think it's just one thing. I think it's been slowly building for a couple of years at least. And I think what's happened in 2026 is it is just hitting sort of a point where it's become more and more visible and noticeable. For fashion brands, it's showing up in their Instagram comments and that sort of thing.

1:56if they're using AI-generated imagery, but just in the world more broadly, we're seeing protests, we're seeing violence directed at tech billionaires, and a lot of concerns over things like data centers in the US midterm elections, which are supposed to happen this year. You know, there's a prediction that AI will actually be sort of like a ballot topic where candidates' opinions on AI can actually swing voters. So I think it's just been sort of ramping up for a while now.

2:26Sheena Butler-Young: Yeah, there was a stat that was referenced in your article, a Quinnipiac poll that showed a almost 10 % increase year over year in negative sentiment around AI among Americans, right? Can we talk a little bit about what the data is showing? Yeah. So this Quinnipiac poll showed that 55 % of Americans believe AI will do more harm than good in their day-to-day lives. And that's up from 44 % in April 2025. So an 11 percentage point increase there. And I think that's pretty significant. I mean, you know, more than half of Americans actually think AI is going to be bad for them. I think that tells you a lot of what public attitudes toward AI are like right now.

3:08Yeah.

3:09Sheena Butler-Young: And, you know, your article opened up with this dressmaker in Los Angeles. I believe they make dresses, Selkie, which faced this really intense backlash to the extent that their founder, Kimberly, did not make a public appearance or use TikTok for a year after she, I think, used some AI generated prints on some dresses and shirts. The backlash was that intense. Can you talk a little bit about what happened? Yeah, this was a really early example of the backlash. This actually took off in January 2024, so a while back now. And she sort of innocently posted some AI-generated images, like prints that she created on Instagram.

3:49Things like puppies and this cat, like this fluffy white Persian cat with some pale pink roses. It was all very cute. It was very like deliberately a little bit kitschy. Like when I spoke to her, she was talking about the like sort of like hallmark postcard imagery from the 80s that was, you know, done in this sort of style. And people, she didn't say initially in her post, like, this is AI-generated imagery, you know, nothing like that, but like people sort of suspected. And then she confirmed it. And then her fan base got really angry. And it started this whole firestorm in the comments on Instagram and on TikTok.

4:29She spent a lot of time responding to people on social media. And it really escalated to the point that she even got death threats over these very cute images of like puppies and cats.

4:41Sheena Butler-Young: Do you think, Mark, that it had something to do with the specific type of business? I believe she has like a sustainability hook or like at the very least, like low batch runs of her garments. Was it that it was used for design? I think people seem to be sensitive about how the AI is used, if it's used for design versus maybe resume filtering, for example. Or is it something entirely different? Maybe it's all of those things. Yeah. So when I spoke with Kimberly, Kimberly Gordon is her name for the story. The way she described it was, you know, her brand is very size inclusive. And she was like that, in theory, shouldn't be a political issue.

5:18Like size and women's bodies shouldn't be political issues, but they are. And because her brand is size inclusive, it has attracted a more politically active and politically aware audience. And she's like, I love my customers. My customers are actually amazing. But like in this instance, they were very angry about this for, you know, a variety of reasons. AI was trained on a bunch of data scraped off the internet without consent, really. So including stuff, designs from a lot of artists. And so in a way, you know, if you use it for any creative purpose, you can make the argument that there's theft involved there.

5:55And then, you know, there are all sorts of other issues, too, like the environmental footprint that you alluded to and a bunch of other things, you know, impact on jobs, anger at tech billionaires who are profiting off of these systems. The fact that none of us voted for any of this. These are not elected representatives, but yet the technology is like rapidly changing our lives. And so kind of all these things together, I think, make it like a really, I guess I could say sensitive, like hot button issue.

6:24Sheena Butler-Young: Absolutely. Haley, I want to bring you in here because you're looking at this through a marketing lens. Does everything that Mark described resonate to you in the marketing beat at BOF? I think it absolutely does. I think when things are more public facing as well, like these images that Selkie created and that were, you know, out there for public consumption, it's so much easier for people to get upset because it feels like a direct attack on the human creativity that is so fundamental to fashion, especially in luxury. You know, brands that are experimenting with AI generated imagery in their campaigns are especially becoming a hot button topic because these luxury brands are built on the story that there's so much love and time put into, you know, everything from the garments themselves to the campaigns that represent them.

7:12And I think when things are a little bit more on the back end, a little less visible, they tend to make people less angry, of course, but when it's out there for public consumption, I think people are definitely quick to jump on it, especially in the comment section. And I think especially when it seems to erode at the story or the values that a brand stands for like Selkie.

7:31Sheena Butler-Young: I love this quote in Mark's story where photographer Joe Horner said that AI in high fashion makes him sad, but also simultaneously that he uses it pretty often for things like grammar correction or maybe drafting an email. Both of you, like how common is this kind of conflicted relationship? I often, when I'm reading people commenting on our Instagram, when we write about AI and they're upset about it, I'm like, I wonder if they realize that they're using it in all kinds of ways every day. Like, do we all have a conflicted relationship with AI? Yeah, I would say we do. I mean, so there are a few different ways this plays out.

8:07One, like that Quinnipiac poll found that negative attitudes are rising at the same time that, AI use is rising. We're using it more even as we're complaining about it. And then to your point, Sheena, like, and so a lot of the AI we talk about is large language models and the things that have come about with ChatGPT and, you know, those tools. But there are a bunch of other forms of AI, like, you know, just regular machine learning algorithms and stuff. And AI is embedded in our day-to-day lives in ways you probably don't even think of. The people who are on Instagram posting comments, they probably got that post surfaced to them by AI.

8:45Anytime you take a picture with your phone, there's AI involved. There's AI used all over the place. It's just that, you know, I think it's this, more this new form of AI, large language models that have really kind of captured the public attention and a lot of funding as well. Like companies like OpenAI are really focused on this specific type of AI. And I think that really brought it into the public consciousness in a way that, you know, even if people used AI before, it wasn't so visible and present in their lives in the way it is now. Yeah. And to build on your point, Mark, I think we're at this kind of complicated inflection point where technologies like Photoshop or CGI now, you know, that people have used for years and years, now all of that technology includes AI as well and is built using AI.

9:31So for instance, when Prada released its very controversial or somewhat controversial campaign that received really mixed reviews recently that used AI in post-production. But, you know, they could have done it with CGI. They could have done it with Photoshop. But even those tools, had they chosen to use them, there's AI embedded in them anyway. So it's complicated. And like it's almost this inextricable relationship where it's embedded into so many processes that all of us use today. So it's become, yeah, we're at a kind of complex point now.

10:01Sheena Butler-Young: Yeah, it's interesting because Prada did say in their statement to BOF that they only used AI in post-production, not for the photo shoot. Like there was a real full-scale photo shoot AI being used in the aftermath. I guess, where does this leave fashion brands? Because you say something like that and maybe people don't care. Or is the consumer actively saying, to your point, Haley, why not use CGI or another tool? Like, are they thinking that or is this outrage just not that point? I think when you see an image that looks like it could have been created using AI, people are going to react. They're going to have that automatic sort of visceral reaction.

10:35And I, you know, maybe that'll fade a little bit with time. But right now, you know, even if a brand were to label something or put in the caption, you know, this was a human photo shoot AI used in post production, you would hope that people might read that kind of caption. But I think, you know, you when you're scrolling so quickly on social media, you're going to have that instantaneous reaction. Yeah, I mean, I agree. And I think one of the points that somebody made to me in the story, Anthony Cousins from Meltwater, he was saying that the context matters too. So an AI-generated image that appears on a brand's website, there's no comment section there.

11:18The use is probably a little different. The context really matters. When you're putting it on social media as a symbol of the brand and you're giving customers a place where they can comment and respond to that, that matters. they could have a stronger and different reaction than if they just scrolled past it on your website.

11:40Sheena Butler-Young: You know, I was speaking to a marketing executive for a story that I did alongside Haley's case study a few weeks ago. And it was interesting. They mentioned that they think consumers are sort of gamifying the process of spotting AI. And it is quite common. Like I see this with my son in the mall. We're walking through the mall and he'll see like a brand's merchandising window. and he'll say, that's AI, this is AI. I do think there's a little bit of that that's also at play. It's like whether or not it's wrong or right, if you spot it, it becomes this immediate reaction for a lot of consumers.

12:11Absolutely. Oh, I was just gonna say, I feel like also if something feels uncanny and it's kind of trying to pass as human or pass as not AI generated, that I think is where it triggers also a strong reaction when they're trying to act like it's not AI, but it is. Yeah, that's kind of the trickier point too. I think what's also funny is that you can't really always tell. There have been tests of this sort of thing. And sometimes you can tell what's AI generated, sometimes you can't. Sometimes the thing that looks AI generated was just really cleaned up in post-production with just a tool like Photoshop.

12:47It wasn't like an actual generated image. And so I think people are very quick to react. But the AI has gotten so good and there's so much Photoshopped imagery out there that you really can't always tell the difference. I think the product campaign is a good example of that, that they didn't use AI in the photo shoot process only in post-production. Yeah, and that those birds were hand-drawn sketches to begin with, but no one would ever guess that looking at the end result of those images.

13:17Sheena Butler-Young: Now everyone's going to go look up these images for these hand sketched birds. So as this public discourse is sort of intensifying in one bucket, Haley, your case study talks about the excitement. Brands are certainly dealing with the consumer side of it, but they're also very excited still, I think, internally about the opportunities for efficiency, for productivity, for speed. And one area where that's really strong is marketing. So your case study makes the point of AI being used all across the marketing funnel. What's been the most exciting developments there? Absolutely. I think there is a ton going on in the back end.

13:53The number one use case in 2026 is idea generation. So brands and teams using AI kind of as a brainstorming partner, a way to kind of bounce ideas off a quote unquote other person, even if that's AI, when you're just, you know, working from home. But 59 % of survey respondents in a Jasper survey responded that that's their top use case. And the second top use case, which I actually think is perhaps the most beneficial at the moment, is multi-asset generation. So that's taking an image that was created in a real photo shoot most often and tweaking it or creating hundreds of different iterations of that.

14:28And the reason that's so useful for brands right now is that as targeting capabilities on Meta have decreased, basically Meta rewards brands that can generate multiple versions of creative that can then be tested across audiences to see what's the best type of creative for various different user types and surfacing the best ad for the best person at the right time. So if a brand can take one photo and create 200 different versions of it to test really quickly, that is going to be super beneficial. I spoke to Goop for the case study, and that's something that's been a top use case for them using a platform called Adora AI.

15:08Another way that brands are using AI that's really interesting is to enhance their targeting and segmenting capabilities. So a lot of them are creating these personas that they can literally speak to using all the 15, 20 years of consumer data to essentially build different consumer types. You know, Beekman 82, the beauty brand, has a couple personas. One's called Healthy Hannah. One's called Luxury Linda. And it can literally query them and say, hey, would you buy this eye cream if it was marketed in this way, if the packaging was designed in this way? So it really helps them develop sort of almost, I wouldn't say parasocial.

15:41I don't know what you describe this kind of relationship as.

15:44Sheena Butler-Young: Brenda, we could go on and on. Exactly. But build a relationship with these personas ahead of time to sort of test in advance a variety of different concepts. And I guess a third key bucket I would discuss is also enhancing your ability to dynamically budget so you can track more easily. Okay, this TikTok campaign drove sales. This TV campaign didn't drive so many sales and being able to adjust your spend really dynamically and automatically. Beakman 1802, again, was able to use AI to shift, I think, six or seven figures towards TikTok campaigns because they just saw how much more of an impact those were driving, where in the past they would spend that same amount to get a report once every six to nine months, which is the kind of information they're getting on a daily basis today.

16:33So that's been really transformative.

16:35Sheena Butler-Young: Yeah. And I think the other interesting stat was revolve it had like double digit gains and conversion also around ai like a proprietary ai tool that they developed um it's interesting because i hear and mark will probably have thoughts i hear like both green flags and red flags in all of this from like a workplace talent perspective which is one of the big fears around ai it's like how long before it does this so well that you at some point don't need humans to step in or one of the themes that that came up in the case study was some brands are using less external partners. Like if you don't need to have all of these agencies generate, you know, one or two versions, you can every day generate a hundred versions of something.

17:16Sheena Butler-Young: Then what's the point of using external partners so much? Mark, have you seen the red flags in all of this? Yeah. I mean, it's something everyone is talking about all the time, especially people like creatives, like graphic designers, photographers, those sorts of people. The point that Haley was making about generating multiple assets, like that used to be work that like somebody manually had to do, and now you no longer need somebody to manually do that. So yeah, I mean, it's a very serious concern for a lot of people for jobs in particular. That Quinnipiac poll, like the impact on jobs of AI was one of the top areas of concern.

17:52And actually one of the things that was interesting was the younger the generation, the more concerned. So Gen Z was, you know, the most concerned versus like boomers, which, you know, makes sense. They're entering the workforce. And one of the big concerns is those are exactly the jobs that AI is going to do more of, is those sort of entry-level positions that maybe used to be a mix of busy work and learning. Now, I don't want to call it busy work, but it's, you know, it can be repetitive, like manual work. If you now can do that with AI, you no longer have a need for whatever, an intern, an entry-level employee.

18:27But that also creates an issue where that person who would have moved up in the ranks eventually and become a more senior leader, their career path is gone. And nobody seems quite certain what the exact effects of all this are going to be.

18:42Sheena Butler-Young: Absolutely. I always say if I hadn't done those quick hit press release, news brief write-ups 10 years ago, I probably couldn't write a feature today. It's a lot of you know, exercising a muscle for early career talent that they're missing out on. No, it's so interesting because, you know, the case study gets into a little bit of the fact that it's not necessarily taking away jobs yet. There is the entry level challenges across the board in fashion. But I think that it's still something that brands seem to be watching. Like it's changing the shape of teams. We don't really know where it's going to go.

19:13Sheena Butler-Young: Are marketers just sort of keeping an eye on it at this point, Haley? Yeah, I think it's absolutely something to watch. And And I think part of the case study is absolutely teams kind of starting to pay attention to the number of people who will be required for these kinds of roles. And that's absolutely an area of concern. You know, if 10 people can do the job of 100 or 1 ,000, that's absolutely going to reshape teams and is definitely a place where, you know, employees are concerned. And I do think we've also seen a lot of restructuring of teams already. I think Zolando is a really good example of this because they've actually increased or scaled their business by 50 % last year.

19:51But in doing that, they totally restructured the way their campaign and content teams operate to almost work more like a newsroom, which was interesting. So essentially, they're taking on this sort of end to end campaign creation that may have involved more different or external teams in the past. Definitely, we're still in this era of restructuring, reshaping. They haven't laid anyone off at the moment on the Zalando side. But I definitely think it's an area of the brands are keeping an eye out and we'll see how it shakes out.

20:20Sheena Butler-Young: Mark, does this resonate sort of across the tech landscape, tech fashion landscape for you? Are you seeing the same sort of experimentation, excitement around efficiency, maybe a changing in shape of teams, but not outright layoffs? And where can this go? Yeah, there's definitely a lot of, I mean, from companies, there's a lot of excitement. You know, they want to be more efficient to boost their profitability. In terms of where this goes, I mean, there's a lot of debate around this because one of the things that's happened historically is when a new technology comes along, it, you know, destroys some jobs and creates others that we never expected.

20:55You know, the idea of a social media manager in the 1990s was not a job. It didn't exist. There's another thing also called, it's called Jeevan's paradox. I don't know if you've heard of this term, but it's this idea that as technology makes a task like cheaper and faster and easier to do, it actually increases demand for it because now more people have access to it because it's cheaper. And so that actually increases the demand for the job. And you actually need more humans to do the job, even if you've used technology to make it easier and faster. The long-term result is actually that the jobs don't necessarily just go away.

21:32Radiology, for instance, Jeffrey Hinton, one of the godfathers of AI, predicted years and years ago that radiologists, like, we should just stop training radiologists because AI would do it better. And today there are more radiologists than ever. And people still make a good living as radiologists. Whether that will continue or not, we'll see. But it's not always that easy to say like a technology is coming along and making everything, you know, it's doing the job better and therefore people are just going to go away. Something we were talking about in terms of junior roles as well, for instance, I know Goop said AI can take on the role that a junior graphic designer may have in the past by moving captions around and changing the text overlaid on an image.

22:14But those kinds of roles, as you said, Mark, we don't even know what those kinds of junior roles, maybe that'll turn into some sort of prompter role and you learn how to prompt from a young age. And then that develops into how you're, you know, building campaigns from the ground up because you've finessed that prompting skill or what have you from a more junior position. So it will be interesting to see how the sort of more entry level roles are reshaped as well. One thing a lot of people like to say, I mean, and again, we'll see how this plays out, but like, it's not like AI won't take your job.

22:47Somebody who knows how to use AI will take your job. Absolutely.

22:50Sheena Butler-Young: And keeping on the theme of forecasting, a couple quick forecast questions for both of you. Do you expect AI free, like this quote unquote AI free, this campaign or product or deck, if you will, was made without AI? Is that going to become this sort of premium marketing label that brands try to use, like organic or handmade, how that had become a thing in the 2010s? Do you predict that that could be the case? Will brands try to get some brownie points for not using AI? A hundred percent. I think that is going to be a big way to value signal. I mean, we're already seeing it with Aerie, which has done this for years and years by saying we don't Photoshop real bodies only.

23:31And they're already extending that into this sort of like AI free language. They recently did a campaign with Pamela Anderson where, you know, they're prompting and prompting, trying to create images of models and everything looks bizarre and totally uncanny. And then they bring in the real models and they bring in Pam Anderson and they say, you know, we'll never use AI. This is not our brand identity. We've never done these sorts of things and we never will. So absolutely, especially if it's aligned with brand storytelling, I think they'll 100 % start to lean all the way in. I think one thing we'll also see is more brands showing like behind the scenes of how their campaign was made, that sort of thing.

24:06Apple has already done that in the past to like really show people there was no AI used here. Like we did this ourselves by hand with puppets, with actors, with whatever the case is, to really like, I think really like not even leave a question in consumers' minds and make sure consumers can trust in what they're putting out there. I think Aliyah did a really cool thing too with their spring campaign where they almost zoomed out their video. They were, you know, showing the photo shoot. They had the imagery of the beautiful products and then they zoomed out on film to show the hand of the makeup artists and the photographers and everyone working kind of in harmony on set to show, you know, silently, but show this is not AI and this is 10 different people coming together to create this beautiful, iconic fashion image.

24:53So I thought that was a really cool campaign example as well.

24:57Sheena Butler-Young: So there's like regulations that are cropping up. So the EU rule requiring disclosure of AI generated content is coming into effect in August. And then New York is going to, is set to require disclosure of AI-generated humans in marketing starting in June. Do you think brands are preparing for this moment? How can they prepare? It's kind of, at one point, this was around Photoshop. And then there was a moment where, or I think it still exists, where you had to say hashtag ad. Remember influencers were pretending that they just loved this mascara and weren't being paid? And then they had to say sponsored.

25:27Sheena Butler-Young: How do brands prepare for something like this? I think it's absolutely, you know, most of the experts I've spoken to have said, you know, Label when in doubt, especially now, because as you said earlier, Sheena, people can guess, they can tell, or it's this game of guessing is it or isn't it. So if you label it, you're already kind of ahead of the curve and you're setting yourself up for success. But I do think also knowing where people have more of an issue with AI, the New York law will require you to label if something, if humans in an ad are AI generated, already knowing that that's going to raise more questions already and people are going to have more of a problem with that already.

26:04But I think, especially as we're in this kind of flux period, making sure you're labeling or being as communicative as possible.

26:13Sheena Butler-Young: These brands, they will make lemonade out of lemons, right? So both of you, last point, any parting advice from your individual remits, where you sit in this conversation, how brands can think about using AI efficiently without turning audiences off. Top advice, Mark. I think there are a variety of things to consider. And, you know, maybe the main one is just how your use of AI could potentially come across to your audience and then how you communicate around that. And I think the big concern that every audience member has pretty much is like, was this used as a cost-cutting measure or as a way to replace a human.

26:56And anytime you're using AI, you should, assuming you weren't doing those things, because let's be real, like a lot of companies are, that's part of why they like technologies, you know, they can do more with less. But if you're not doing those things, I think you need to find ways to make that clear. Whether that's like, if you're using AI for like customer service, One example somebody gave me was like, you know, instead of just putting a chatbot on your site that's going to replace your human customer service, like, use it when your human customer service isn't available and make clear that the AI is there to assist you in the meantime until a human comes back online.

27:38For instance, if your brand is based in New York or something and somebody's trying to buy something from overseas and it's midnight in New York and nobody is available, you can use AI in that instance and potentially solve the problem and help them. And it doesn't come off as like, we just did this to replace somebody. It's like, this is actually trying to improve your customer experience. Yeah, I think that's kind of the main thing is just making clear like what you are and aren't using it for and being very aware of that yourself and not trying to lie to consumers about that because they'll spot that as well.

28:11To build on your point, Mark, I would say, you know, in terms of providing a better customer experience, using it to better understand and serve your customer going back to those personas like, hey, who is my customer today for real? And like, how, what do they really want? And like AI can help you do that. And also, you know, using the AI advertising tools to make sure that you're not wasting people's time and you're not wasting your own money. You're showing people ads for products that they actually want to see, language that actually resonates with them. So using it kind of in those ways and also using AI to track, you know, hey, did my consumers see an AI ad and did they churn because of it?

28:51Or, oh, have I been able to retain them because I put this kind of content out there that used AI to tweak an image, but they you know, they continue to remain a loyal customer. Okay, I know this type of AI usage resonates with them, you know, I can continue to do so. So using AI platforms to actually track what's resonating, what's not and kind of tweaking and finessing as you go. So ironically, I guess it can be used to sort of track, you know, how people how your consumer actually feels about AI, which I think is helpful as well.

29:22Sheena Butler-Young: Awesome. So first, do no harm. And then second, like, always in service with the consumer. I think we should have BOF Brenda. I'm just going to leave it there as our persona and we'll see who can execute on that. Haley, Mark, thanks so much for joining us today. Thanks so much, Sheena. Please be sure to check out Haley and Mark's articles for all things marketing and AI at businessoffashion.com. These and other stories are available to BOF professional subscribers only and you can find the links in the episode notes. You've been listening to The Debrief, produced and edited by Olivia Davies. I'm Sheena Butler-Young.

29:54Sheena Butler-Young: We'll be back next week with a new episode Thanks so much for joining us and be sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts.

30:36We'll see you next time.