Spam is becoming an increasing trust and measurement problem for brands as AI floods the social media market.
In fact, Reddit recently reported blocking 23 million spam views per day before they reached a human user, yet user exposure to spam only fell by 20% from January to March 2026.
If the social media environment is now shaped by undetected AI-generated content, bots, and engagement, how should brands think about their next strategy move?
In conversation with CX Today, Sarah Stephenson, Social Director at tmp, highlights how these results may indicate a larger issue.
“It does feel impossible to know the exact number because I believe platforms only report on what they detect and remove, verses what they miss,” she explained.
“They themselves might not even realise how much content is being missed! However, this recent Reddit stat does highlight that AI content is being created at an enormous scale.”
A New Era Of Social Uncertainty
AI’s involvement in the customer journey is becoming more apparent than ever, as 94% of buying groups now reportedly use LLMs or AI assistants during the research process.
AI spam, in particular, is creating a new challenge for marketers because the issue is no longer just the presence of spam, but the scale at which it can influence the social media environment.
Since its launch, social platforms have always dealt with fake accounts, low-quality content, and manipulated engagement, however the introduction of AI tools has increased the speed and volume at which this activity can be produced.
If an environment becomes influenced by automated or inauthentic activity, it becomes harder for marketers to understand what audiences are actually seeing and responding to.
Reddit’s recent success in removing tens of millions of contents from the platform with user exposure to spam having only decreased by around 20% suggests that while detection systems are improving, the amount of AI-generated and manipulated content are a result of the ongoing reality for marketers operating on large social platforms.
As a result, brands using social platforms can see the activity that has been identified and removed, but they cannot know with certainty how much content is going undetected.
“This recent Reddit stat does highlight that AI content is being created at an enormous scale, and because it is being blocked at such a consistent high volume, it does give a lot of hope that the platforms detection systems are constantly improving,” Stephenson notes.
“As the detection systems improve, so do the AI content generation tools.”
Building Trust In Noisy Feeds
The rise of AI-generated spam and manipulated activity also means traditional signals such as likes, followers, and shares are more difficult to interpret.
With Reddit now removing nearly 2 million inauthentic votes every day, this key visibility metric highlights the wider issue that applies across social platforms, where engagement signals can also be influenced by automated activity.
For marketers, this creates uncertainty around whether performance data reflects genuine human attention, not meaning social media metrics no longer have value, but that brands need to be more careful about how they interpret them.
“Metrics such as impressions, likes, views, comments can easily be manipulated by bots and spam accounts,” Stephenson highlights.
“Engagement metrics will still have their place and still indicate how content performs within platform algorithms, but they can’t be viewed as a complete measure of marketing success.”
Regarding brand trust, the way audiences judge credibility is changing as feeds fill with AI-generated content.
This means that publishing consistently is no longer enough to build authority as content that feels generic or overly automated risks blending into the wider volume of AI-generated material.
For brands, this requires evaluating social performance with more care, while also creating content that feels distinctive and authentic as audiences become more selective about what they trust and engage with.
In an environment where AI activity can influence attention, marketers need to focus on signals that demonstrate real interest, relevance, and value.
Putting Human Expertise First
The marketer’s response to AI-generated content should therefore not mean abandoning social media, but become more selective about signals to rely on and more intentional when creating content.
As AI-generated content becomes easier to produce at scale, the brands that stand out will be those that provide experiences that cannot be easily replicated.
“It’s now about how you demonstrate authenticity and expertise through your own personal experiences,” Stephenson explains.
“Creating something that AI can’t replicate or copy.”
For example, content based on real-world context is harder for AI-generated spam accounts to imitate because it relies on credibility, perspective, and lived experience rather than patterns or templates.
Furthermore, a brands approach to traditional measurement should not be treated as the final measure of success, requiring marketers to place greater emphasis on metrics that demonstrate meaningful attention and business impact that contribute to commercial outcomes.
“It’s time to finally start evaluating success through outcomes especially those that reflect genuine human attention and business value/revenue,” she argued.
“Due to this ‘churn’ feel and with users posting/creating the same things, this is where we will see a rise in engagement with the content that an individual shares their own unique POV and/or creating content that is different to everyone else.”
AI spam is now pushing marketers to improve practices that were already becoming increasingly important, meaning brands can build trust through distinctive human content and evaluate performance through outcomes rather than surface-level activity.
Platforms will continue improving their detection systems, but marketers will need to adapt their own strategies for a social environment where not engagement signal can automatically be assumed to represent human interest.
