You don’t have to be chronically online to know that generative AI has infiltrated nearly every part of our online lives. Social media is no exception: Meta’s AI chatbot pushes its way into search on Instagram and Facebook, and Grok offers chat and content creation on X. AI video generation features have emerged on Snapchat, YouTube and TikTok.
Beyond its reach to users, artificial intelligence is increasingly significant behind the scenes as a professional tool for social media brands and creators.
According to a new global survey from the social platform management company Metricool, the majority of social media managers (96%) use AI tools to help them with their work. Nearly three-quarters of social media marketers use AI every day.
“All of us are trying to figure out the best way to use [AI], the right tools, and how to really hone it into our own brand voice,” said Anniston Ward, US PR events and education manager for Metricool. “Everyone’s trying to understand the best way to use it.”
While AI can bring time-saving benefits to the people behind the posts, generative AI comes with worrisome risks in shaping our online and offline realities. As our favorite brands and creators find new ways to harness AI, it’s bound to reignite the debate around how to take advantage of valuable AI use cases while prioritizing human connection.
An AI-enabled social media future also raises concerns around deterring AI slop — mass-produced, junky and superficial content that clogs up the web and social media accounts.
Here’s how creators are using AI and what pitfalls lurk.
How AI is used in social media marketing
In many cases, social media jobs involve several roles in one: content creator, customer service representative, data analyst, trends spotter, and external communications. As teams and budgets shrink, social media professionals are bound to feel more stretched, as they face high expectations to post multiple times a day on several different platforms. The industry is no stranger to burnout.
And therein lies the great appeal of AI, which promises to speed up workflows and automate mundane tasks.
“The reality is, if you’re managing multiple accounts and churning out endless content, you do need an extra pair of hands. I think AI has basically become that extra pair,” said Matt Navarra, a social media industry expert and founder of the Geekout newsletter.
AI can be thought of as a “super-powered intern,” Navarra said.
According to the Metricool survey, the most common use of AI is content idea generation or brainstorming (78%), followed by writing posts, captions, and copy (72%), and adapting existing text for different tones or channels (68%). Reflecting those use cases, most of the popular AI tools are chatbots. ChatGPT nabbed the top spot, followed by Canva, Gemini and Perplexity.
Professional photographer Gissel Arbelaez relies heavily on social media to reach new customers for her business in Buenos Aires. To make sure those channels are picture-perfect, she uses AI to correct and improve her English.
“Since English is my second language and around 70% of the people I work with are English speakers, I need to make sure my grammar is spotless. Nothing goes on my social media without being checked by AI first,” Arbelaez said via email. She also occasionally turns to AI editing tools in Adobe Creative Cloud, like generative fill and remove.
AI has also come into play among bigger teams focused on social media and marketing. Alba Benítez, director and founder of marketing firm Plural Agency, said her team uses AI to unify their knowledge bases and files to “save us from the small frictions” and streamline processes.
“[AI] has freed up mental space for creativity. I can now dedicate more energy to developing fresh projects and pushing our communication further, instead of being stuck in the noise of operations,” Benítez said.
Creating original content through photo and video shoots can be expensive and time consuming. AI can help stretch or adapt one piece of content to work for multiple channels, whether that’s clipping a video, resizing visual assets or generating different versions of the same message to match the tone of each platform’s audience.
This behind-the-scenes AI usage isn’t immediately apparent in the feeds of scrolling viewers. Just as AI can alleviate administrative burdens for creators, it can also elevate our social media experiences, if managed appropriately.
When (and why) not to use AI
AI is not always suitable or useful for social media professionals. Quality is a big concern, with 45% of Metricool’s survey respondents reporting it as the primary reason they hold back on AI.
Quality issues can range from chatbots hallucinating and making up false information to more dangerous things like replicating biases in their training data. A content creator wouldn’t use an AI-generated product image if the program misspelled the company’s name, for example.
“There’s a constant battle of ‘Is AI-generated content the same quality as human voices?'” Ward said.
Even if AI tools improve accuracy and match content quality, maintaining a unique voice and personality is key for big brands and small creators. If they rely too heavily on AI for content creation and editing, they risk losing their individuality. As Navarra put it, AI can draft, but humans must polish.
“If a brand sounds the same because they’re all using the same [AI] model, social media becomes incredibly boring and ceases to be a platform for connection,” said Navarra.
If the entirety of your X or Instagram feed is AI-generated garbage, you’re more likely to miss posts you find valuable and eventually be persuaded to ditch the platform. Even as social media gets more fragmented, we’re still looking to be informed, entertained and connected. Badly done AI threatens that.
Reputational harm and backlash
Apart from AI slop, which is pretty widely hated, there’s an inherent risk in using the tech at all. Generative AI is controversial, from worries about job security to legal, ethical and environmental concerns. Using AI for content creation or marketing comes with the risk of alienating an AI-wary audience, especially since not all platforms require labels to be added to AI content, and many can’t flag AI usage on their own. It’s not just low-quality, biased or misleading AI content that can upset users; it’s more subtle AI usage and a lack of disclosures.
Recently, Duolingo announced an internal AI initiative, prioritizing AI over human translators. Vogue included a Guess ad in its July print edition, and readers later learned that the model wasn’t real but created with AI. Followers and fans of both brands immediately took to social media to tell the brands directly why they were so unhappy with those pivots to AI.
“We’re all in this limbo period right now where we’re pressured to use AI. It does help a lot with the content ideation and generation, but I think there are some missing gaps in how to use it thoughtfully,” said Ward.
Those gaps can quickly become obvious and detrimental to a brand. To put it in perspective, Arbelaez said all her social media efforts are to build trust with potential and existing customers. Any social media expert will tell you that it’s easy to lose an audience’s trust and much harder to earn it back.
Finding the right balance of AI for everyone
Every creator I spoke with highlighted places in their work where they wouldn’t use AI. The specific tasks varied, but the common denominator was drawing the line before AI could infringe upon or replace human creativity. Strategy, decision-making and sensitive communications are areas where AI has no place, Benítez said. Navarra echoed that sentiment, adding that AI might be the intern, but it shouldn’t be the creative director.
We’re in a new reality where the internet seems to be as much human as AI. While AI slop is pretty widely hated, there is a new spectrum gauging how much AI we will tolerate on our feeds. A big part of that is if we know AI is being used, whether the platform labels it as such or the creator discloses it themselves.
There is a not-small segment of social media users who won’t tolerate any AI. Some are totally pro AI. Finding the right balance is the challenge for social media managers.
For the rest of us, we have to hope and trust that brands and creators understand that we don’t want them all to sound and look the same.
“Social media’s always been about connection, and I think AI can help with the media part, but the social part, the trust, the humor, the empathy, that’s still human,” said Navarra. “Brands that remember that will be the ones that serve their customers well and win.”
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