A recent Instagram ad from outdoor retailer REI Co-op drew backlash after some users noticed that the bike in the image seemed to have a unique feature: two sets of handlebars.
"REI using AI slop now. So much for caring about the environment," read a Reddit post over the weekend about the ad that received hundreds of upvotes.
Turns out the image was the result of AI adjustments, with REI pointing to an AI tool from Meta, Instagram's parent company.
"Meta auto-enrolled us in an AI personalization tool that produced an inaccurate and inappropriate alteration of a vendor-provided image in some of our ads," an REI spokesperson said in a statement to Business Insider. "While a two-handled bike might be interesting, it is not something you will find in our assortment."
The image, which promoted a bike from the brand Van Rysel, showed a woman in a park standing beside the oddly shaped bike.
Van Rysel North America confirmed to Business Insider that the original image supplied to REI came from a Van Rysel photo shoot featuring cyclist Amity Rockwell, adding, "Any later alterations were not made by Van Rysel."
Meta declined to comment when reached by Business Insider.
The company's terms for its generative AI ad tools state that AI-generated ad outputs may be "inaccurate, incomplete, misleading, offensive, and/or inappropriate" and that advertisers are responsible for evaluating them before use.
The REI spokesperson said the company unenrolled from the Meta tool, adding, "This does not align with our values or how we manage our brand. Product accuracy and our vendor relationships matter. We apologize for the confusion this caused."
REI is not the first advertiser to report unexpected results from Meta's AI ad tools. As Business Insider previously reported, several advertisers said Meta's AI tool had also generated bizarre or nonsensical ads for their products, and that some settings, like "test new creative features" and "automatic adjustments," had automatically been toggled to "on."
A Meta spokesperson at the time said advertisers who use full image generation "have the opportunity to review the generated images before running their ad." They also said millions of advertisers had found their AI ad creative tools valuable and that the tools improved their ad performance.
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Kelsey is a senior reporter for Business Insider, where she covers business and tech news as well as stories about travel, luxury, and consulting.Her feature story "Disaster at 18,200 feet" received awards from the New York Press Club and the North American Travel Journalists Association, as well as honorable mention from the Society of American Travel Writers. It was also included on Longreads' and Pocket's best of 2022 lists. She has also received an American Journalism Online Award for her coverage on missing and murdered Indigenous people in Wyoming.She's appeared on CBS, NPR, NBC, and other outlets to discuss her work. She previously worked on the world news desk at the BBC in London and received a master's in journalism from Northwestern University.She can be reached by email at [email protected] or via the encrypted-messaging app Signal @kelseyv.21.Popular storiesDisaster on Denali: Inside a 1,000-foot fall on America's highest peakThrifting is more popular than ever. It's also never been worse.Rolex wouldn't service the vintage watch my mom inherited. Watchmakers say it happens all the time.A tiny, invasive bug and the climate crisis are changing how guitars are made, and shifting the course of music historyThe tourism free-for-all is overGovernment-run boarding schools were founded to 'civilize' Native Americans. Hundreds of dead children remain buried in the schoolyard graves.Meet the Texas minister who helps fly dozens of women to New Mexico every month to get abortionsPeople are flocking to Colorado for the great outdoors, but the air pollution is so bad, it's forcing many to stay insideInside Kabul: An aid worker reveals the devastating chaos that erupted during the US exit from Afghanistan
