DeepSeek And Its Impact On The Generative AI Global Race via @sejournal, @AlliBerry3

Since launching to the public on Jan. 20, 2025, Chinese startup DeepSeek’s open-source AI-powered chatbot has taken the tech world by storm.

As the top free app by downloads in the U.S. Apple app store since Jan. 26 – with 16 million app downloads in its first 18 days (ChatGPT had 9 million in the same timeframe) – DeepSeek’s performance and accompanying search feature is at least on par with OpenAI’s ChatGPT for a fraction of the cost.

Its launch led U.S.-based AI technology company, Nvidia, to the greatest drop in market value for a U.S. company in U.S. stock market history. That’s quite an entrance!

U.S. tech analysts and investors seem to all fear that the U.S. is falling behind in the generative AI global race.

This may be warranted considering how quickly and cost-effectively DeepSeek was able to get R1 developed and out the door.

DeepSeek utilizes reinforcement learning, meaning the model learns complex reasoning behaviors through reinforcement without supervised fine-tuning, which allows it to save significant computational resources.

But, is DeepSeek really going to emerge as the leader in AI? And what are the implications for this development for the future of search? Let’s dive in.

What Has Happened Since DeepSeek Launched?

While U.S. tech companies were humbled by the speed and claimed cost efficiency of this launch, DeepSeek’s arrival has not been without controversy.

A lot of questions lurk, ranging from suspected intellectual property violations to security, data privacy, Chinese censorship, and the true cost of its technology.

Legal Issues For Copyright And Data Protection

OpenAI and Microsoft are investigating whether DeepSeek used OpenAI’s API to integrate their AI models into DeepSeek’s own models.

OpenAI claims it has evidence of DeepSeek distilling the outputs of OpenAI to build a rival model, which is against OpenAI’s terms of service, but likely not against the law.

Distillation allows for the transfer of knowledge of a large pre-trained model into a smaller model, which enables the smaller model to achieve comparable performance to the large one while reducing costs.

This is more than a little ironic given the lawsuits against OpenAI for ignoring other site’s terms of service and using their copyrighted internet data to train its systems.

There are also questions about where user data is stored and how it is processed, given that DeepSeek is a Chinese-based startup.

For anyone handling customer information and payment details, integrating a tool like DeepSeek that stores data in a foreign jurisdiction could violate data protection laws and expose sensitive information to unauthorized access.

Given that DeepSeek has yet to provide its privacy policies, industry experts and security researchers advise using extreme caution with sensitive information in DeepSeek.

DeepSeek Security Breach

Wiz Research, a company specializing in cloud security, announced it was able to hack DeepSeek and expose security risks with relative ease on Jan. 29.

It found a publicly accessible database belonging to DeepSeek, which allowed it full control over database operations and access to user data and API keys.

Wiz alerted the DeepSeek team, and they took immediate action to secure the data. However, it is unclear who else accessed or downloaded the data before it was secured.

While it’s not uncommon for startups to move fast and make mistakes, this is a particularly large mistake and shows DeepSeek’s lack of focus on cybersecurity so far.

National Security Concerns Similar To TikTok

There are national security concerns about DeepSeek’s data collection policies reminiscent of fears about TikTok, which saw a similar rise in global prominence out of Chinese-based company ByteDance.

The U.S. government briefly banned TikTok in January 2025, which came out of concerns about how the company was collecting data about users. There were also fears that the Chinese government could use the platform to influence the public in the U.S.

A few incidents in the last several years that initiated that fear include TikTok employees utilizing location data from the app to track reporters to find a source of leaked information, and TikTok employees being reported to have plans to track specific U.S. citizens.

While TikTok is active in the U.S. right now, its future is unconfirmed.

For similar reasons to the TikTok concerns, a number of governments around the world, including Australia and Italy, are already working to ban DeepSeek from government systems and devices. The U.S. is also considering a ban on DeepSeek.

Chinese Censorship

Regardless of whether you run DeepSeek locally or in its app, DeepSeek’s censorship is present for queries deemed sensitive by the Chinese government, according to a Wired investigation.

However, because it is open source, there are ways of getting around the censorship, but it’s difficult.

Doing so would require running on your own servers using modified versions of the publicly available DeepSeek code, which means you’d need access to several highly advanced GPUs to run the most powerful version of R1.

Questions About Cost

Much has been written about the cost of building DeepSeek. Initial claims by DeepSeek were that it took under $6 million to build based on the rental price of Nvidia’s GPUs.

However, a report from SemiAnalysis, a semiconductor research and consulting firm, has since argued that DeepSeek’s hardware spend was higher than $500 million, along with additional R&D costs.

For context, OpenAI lost about $5 billion in 2024 and anticipates it will lose more than $11 billion in 2025. Even if DeepSeek did cost $500 million or more, it still cut costs compared to what leading competitors are spending.

So, how did they cut costs?

Before DeepSeek came along, the leading AI technologies were built on neural networks, which are mathematical systems that learn skills by analyzing huge amounts of data. This requires large amounts of computing power.

Specialized computer chips called graphics processing units (GPUs) are an effective way to do this kind of data analysis. This is how chipmaker Nvidia grew to prominence (and also had a huge fall in market value on the day DeepSeek launched).

GPUs cost around $40,000 and require considerable electricity, which is why leading AI technologies like OpenAI’s ChatGPT were so expensive to build.

Sending data between chips can also require more energy than running the chips themselves.

DeepSeek was able to reduce costs, most notably by using a method called “mixture of experts.”

Instead of creating one neural network that learned data patterns on the internet, they split the system into many neural networks and launched smaller “expert” systems paired with a “generalist” system, reducing the amount of data needed to travel between GPU chips.

The Implications Of Being Open Source

DeepSeek-R1 is as “open-source” as any LLM has been thus far, which means anyone can download, use, or modify its code.

Similar to Meta’s Llama, the code and technical explanations are shared, enabling developers and organizations to utilize the model for their own business needs, but the training data is not fully disclosed.

Many believe DeepSeek is a big step toward democratizing AI, allowing smaller companies and developers to build on DeepSeek-R1 and achieve greater AI feats faster.

This could lead to more innovation in places with more limited access to the tech needed to build AI solutions.

But, critics fear that open-source models can expose security vulnerabilities that could be exploited, which we’ve already seen in DeepSeek’s first weeks in the public.

DeepSeek And The Future of SEO

So, what does this all really mean for search professionals? The way I see it, DeepSeek is just the next splashy AI chatbot with search capabilities in the rapidly changing world of SEO.

It’s important to understand that while tools like DeepSeek and ChatGPT use advanced natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning, they still simply provide answers to real questions that real people ask.

Their responses heavily focus on semantic understanding, intent matching, and contextual analysis, but they ultimately serve the same core user need.

While we have years of experience testing optimization tactics on more established search engines like Google, we’re still at the beginning stages of understanding optimization for generative AI chatbots.

Final Thoughts

Whether DeepSeek will stick and grow in prominence remains to be seen.

Obviously, if other governments follow Australia, Italy, and potentially the U.S. to ban DeepSeek, that would limit its potential for growth.

And much as DeepSeek rose to prominence rapidly by providing a blueprint for others and significantly lowering costs, a new market-moving AI could always be just around the corner.

Regardless of what happens with DeepSeek, we are at the beginning of a very rapid period of innovation in AI technology.

As SEO professionals, we need to be prepared to test a surge of new platforms and reverse engineer how they arrive at their responses to user queries.

More Resources:


Featured Image: Phonlamai Photo/Shutterstock

AI Chatbots Fail News Accuracy Test, BBC Study Reveals via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

BBC study finds leading AI chatbots consistently distort news content, raising concerns about information accuracy and trust.

  • AI chatbots are getting news wrong more often than right.
    Trusted brands like BBC are losing control of their content.
  • The problem is industry-wide, affecting all major AI platforms.
  • The problem is industry-wide, affecting all major AI platforms.
Building Trust In The AI Era: Content Marketing Ethics And Transparency via @sejournal, @rio_seo

We’re officially entering a new era: the content overload era.

Content is no longer seen as a nice to have but a must for the majority of businesses.

The sheer volume of content being created and published daily across the web is astounding, to say the least – WordPress alone sees about 70 million new posts each month.

Knowing this could send content marketers into a frenzy, scrambling to crank out more content to keep up with demand. But quantity alone isn’t the only marker for content success.

The content overload era has done more than just spark the need for more; it prompted a reliance on tools and technology.

One such tool that has made its way into nearly every content marketer’s toolkit is artificial intelligence (AI). Its ability to streamline mundane processes quickly and with minimal effort has made it a crowd favorite for many content marketing professionals.

As more content marketers turn to AI to help with the content brainstorming, development, and distribution process, it raises one poignant question: Are we sacrificing quality for speed?

While unclear at first, it’s now more evident than ever that AI is here to stay and holds the potential to become an ally for content marketers when used right – a tool used for support rather than as a standalone solution.

In this post, we’ll explore how to amplify your content marketing efforts the right way, strengthening your trust with your audience.

You’ll learn how to cut through the noise to reach your target audience amid emerging tools, tactics, and technology.

You’ll walk away feeling confident in how to effectively reach and engage with your audience without relying solely on AI for your content marketing efforts.

Understanding The Challenges Of Content Saturation

Every second of the day, an influx of content is published across myriad platforms such as email, social media, websites, and more.

Consumers are inundated with content, having to sift through the mountains of information to find what is most relevant to their needs.

Vying for their time and attention can be difficult, especially when your competitors, and even those in different verticals, are attempting to do the same.

The rise of AI technology presents another challenge. Some content marketers and businesses are turning to AI to draft and publish content quickly.

Given its accessibility and capabilities, AI is becoming an easy way to churn out content, although a study has pointed to decreases in search engine visibility with AI-generated content.

The consistent, steady stream of content options can lead to what many refer to as “information overload,” where consumers become overwhelmed with the endless content options at their fingertips.

Information overload makes it increasingly difficult for brands to stand out. Additionally, algorithms are becoming attuned to understanding consumer preferences, surfacing, and prioritizing content based on relevance and engagement.

Generic content marketing strategies no longer suffice. Smart and savvy strategies are required in the ultra-fierce race for audience attention.

Breaking Through The Noise: Strategies That Work To Build Trust

Content isn’t being served in one single location. Long gone are the days of direct mail, email, and blogs being the main content forces to reckon with. The battle for attention is more arduous than ever.

With the emergence of social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, content creation is no longer just in written form but rather through captivating photos, audio, and video formats.

Innovative content marketing approaches are necessary to truly build trust and differentiate your content from others.

Hyper-targeted content, personalization, and strategic AI usage are among those approaches that lead to the path to content marketing mastery.

1. Hyper-Targeted Content: Reaching The Right Audience

Imagine shouting into a void, one so massive and wide-reaching that your voice barely penetrates the surface.

The effort exerted to scream your message wouldn’t be worthwhile as no one would hear a word you say. Unfortunately, this example is all too common in the world of digital marketing.

Despite the most earnest efforts, marketers don’t effectively reach their audience due to poor segmentation or not understanding the audience at a granular level.

By analyzing key data points – like demographic, psychographic, and behavior data – brands can tap into what motivates their target audience most.

Content can then be delivered more effectively to the right audience at the right time with the right message.

Tools like Google Analytics, Google Business Profile, and email and social media marketing platforms are becoming more intelligent, enabling businesses to gain a deeper understanding of their audience through deeper insights.

These insights may reveal the best time of day to send a message, what locations are receiving the most traffic, the top-performing email nurture sequence to send new customers, and much more.

Takeaway: Craft Content Tailored To Niche Interests

Generic content no longer works. Instead, successful content marketers focus on niche markets, delivering highly relevant content that addresses a specific pain point.

For example, a popular pet retailer offers numerous specialty services to their customers. Bundling all this information on one landing page can cause confusion, leading to lower click-through rates and, in turn, less revenue.

By adding specialty landing pages with unique content for each of their services offered, such as vaccinations, aquatics, grooming, and more, the pet retailer saw dramatic increases in organic search traffic.

Understanding your audience is imperative, and content must match the needs of the individual.

Additionally, this level of segmentation can help customers build trust with your business, perceiving you as a trusted resource that truly understands their needs.

They no longer feel like just another email contact on your massive send list.

Hyper-targeted content requires more than cranking out AI-generated content. It requires human oversight to ensure segmentation is correct, the message isn’t generic, and your content matches the audience’s unique needs.

AI can be great for helping you brainstorm content ideas for your niche audience; however, a human copywriter is necessary to truly get the message over the line.

2. Effective Use Of Personalization

Addressing a prospect by their first name isn’t personalization.

Content personalization extends far beyond simply knowing the names of your customers. Modern content consumers expect more out of businesses in order to trust them enough to purchase.

They expect content that aligns with their unique needs, such as surfacing previously frequent purchases or highlighting a book that’s similar in style to the last book a customer read.

Customers are savvy, and if they’re presented with options that don’t align with their preferences, they’ll look elsewhere.

Think of Amazon, for example. Amazon’s algorithms are intelligent enough to highlight a product within a certain time period based on the buyer’s purchase history.

For example, a customer might buy Vitamin D supplements every three months. Amazon will likely show this product to the consumer around the time a refill is needed, streamlining and optimizing the path to purchase.

Revenue can be strongly tied to personalization. A HubSpot report found that segmented emails can boost opens by 30% and click-throughs by 50%, highlighting the value of personalization.

Takeaway: Personalization – A Powerful Differentiator That Requires Balance

Personalization walks a fine line. It shows you care about your customers by sharing more relevant content that matches their needs; however, privacy must be considered.

Algorithms are becoming more intelligent by analyzing and refining their content distribution strategies. This requires customer data, a subject that breeds concern and calls ethics into question.

It’s crucial for businesses to share how, when, and where customer data is collected. Disclose this clearly on your website and in your content in a clearly visible and easy-to-locate location.

Transparency is key to winning trust and credibility.

3. Responsible AI Usage In Content Creation

Many marketers have jumped aboard the AI bandwagon – 64% are already using it. Despite its prominent adoption, AI is seen as both a blessing and a curse.

On one hand, it has significantly impacted the way we work, streamlining tasks and delivering quick results.

On the other, it leads to duplicated content, information bias, irrelevant content, and an abundance of content that all sounds the same.

In fact, over half (60%) are concerned AI will harm their brand’s reputation through bias, plagiarism, or misalignment with brand values.

AI, when used responsibly, can enhance content marketing. However, the tool itself can’t mitigate concerns associated with its usage for content marketing specifically.

Only humans hold the power to truly transform the content experience and eliminate the over-reliance on AI for content creation.

Use cases for AI for content marketers:

  • Data analysis.
  • Improving drafts.
  • Keyword research.
  • Content optimization.
  • Technical SEO fixes.
  • Grammar and clarity.
  • Outline creation.

Takeaway: Use AI To Complement Human Efforts

Relying solely on AI for content creation comes with inherent risks.

AI-generated content often lacks authenticity and loses the author’s unique tone of voice. It can sound the same, reading too crisp and polished.

It loses the human element – interjecting the emotion and spark human writers accomplish that AI simply can’t.

Successful brands recognize AI can enhance human creativity, but it is not meant as a replacement.

Human ingenuity helps to build trust and shines your business in a more positive light.

Integrating All 3 Strategies For Maximum Impact

Content marketing strategies work best when used in tandem.

For example, a retailer might use AI to extract common themes in customer feedback, hyper-targeted content to promote relevant content based on customer feedback within a specific region, and personalize outreach with product recommendations based on the buyer’s behavior.

This all-encompassing approach not only improves customer experience but holds the potential to improve return on investment (ROI) as well.

As with any marketing strategy, measurement is a must. Keep a pulse on your wins as well as your opportunities for enhancement.

A firm understanding of metrics such as click-through rates, conversion rates, and engagement metrics across all platforms helps you spot what’s working and what isn’t.

The dual content overload and AI era has just begun, and the way content marketers used to reach customers will no longer suffice.

Instead, as marketers, we must work diligently to bridge the trust gap that exists between customers and brands.

This has become an increasingly tough task given the advancement of AI technology, where it can be tough to discern who’s behind the messaging – a human or a machine.

Marketers must focus on ethics and transparency to ensure every message they craft is meaningful, useful, and relevant.

By using AI as a supportive tool, adopting hyper-targeted campaigns, and leveraging personalization strategies, brands will create customer experiences that land with their audience.

Content will continue to grow at an astounding pace, but the brands that prioritize top-notch content and connection will continue to stand out.

More Resources:


Featured Image: Andrey_Popov/Shutterstock

Can AI-Generated Content Be Copyrighted? Here’s What U.S. Law Says via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

The U.S. Copyright Office has released a report on how current laws apply to content created by AI.

It affirms that AI can assist with the creative process, but only works that include meaningful human input can be copyrighted.

Here’s what you need to know about copyrighting AI-generated content.

Key Findings

Human Authorship Is Essential

The report states that AI-generated output can only receive copyright protection if a human adds significant creative input.

This input might include:

  • Major changes to AI-created material
  • Creative arrangement or selection of AI outputs (like putting together AI-generated text into a collection)
  • Use of AI elements in larger human-created works (such as using AI-generated visuals in a film storyboard)

However, just giving prompts to an AI system without any extra creative input doesn’t qualify for copyright.

No Legal Changes Recommended

The Copyright Office believes current copyright laws can adapt to content made by AI.

They point to past examples of copyright principles changing to accommodate photography, computer code, and other new technologies.

The report doesn’t support immediate changes to the law.

What This Means

Here’s what this means for artists, writers, and businesses using AI tools:

  1. Collaborative Works: Projects that mix AI-generated elements with human-created ones (like AI-assisted designs improved by artists) might get partial copyright protection.
  2. Tool Usage: Using AI for editing, brainstorming, or technical tasks does not take away a work’s copyright eligibility as long as a human shapes the final result.
  3. Prompt Engineers: Those who only create prompts for AI without adding more creative input will not own rights to the AI outputs.

What’s Next?

The Copyright Office will examine issues like AI training data and licensing in future reports.

Ongoing lawsuits might influence how courts interpret these rules.

This report is part of the U.S. Copyright Office’s AI Initiative launched in 2023. The first part focused on digital replicas and voice cloning, while future sections will address AI training data, licensing, and liability.

FAQ: U.S. Copyright Office Report On AI-Generated Content

We understand you may still have questions, and we’ll do our best to answer them with quotes pulled directly from the report.

1. Is current copyright law sufficient to handle AI-generated works?

A:

“Questions of copyrightability and AI can be resolved pursuant to existing law, without the need for legislative change.”

2. Can AI-generated material ever be copyrighted?

A:

“Copyright does not extend to purely AI-generated material, or material where there is insufficient human control over the expressive elements.”

3. Does using AI tools disqualify a work from copyright protection?

A:

“The use of AI tools to assist rather than stand in for human creativity does not affect the availability of copyright protection for the output.”

4. Are prompts enough to claim authorship of AI-generated content?

A:

“Prompts alone do not provide sufficient human control to make users of an AI system the authors of the output.”

5. Can human edits to AI outputs qualify for copyright?

A:

“Human authors are entitled to copyright in their works of authorship that are perceptible in AI-generated outputs, as well as the creative selection, coordination, or arrangement of material in the outputs, or creative modifications of the outputs.”

6. Should AI systems receive new legal protections?

A:

“The case has not been made for additional copyright or sui generis protection for AI-generated content.”

7. What about international competition in AI development?

A:

“In the European Union, the majority of member states agreed, in response to a 2024 policy questionnaire on the relationship between generative AI and copyright, that current copyright principles adequately address the copyright eligibility of AI outputs and there is no need to provide new or additional protection.”

8. How does this affect creators with disabilities who use AI tools?

A:

“Discussing creators with disabilities, another noted that “AI acts as a tool in the hands of an author,” rather than a source of expressive content.

The Office strongly supports the empowerment of all creators, including those with disabilities. We stress that to the extent these functionalities are used as tools to recast, transform, or adapt an author’s expression, copyright protection would be available for the resulting work.”

For More Information

Read the full report and access registration examples at copyright.gov/AI.


Featured Image: Family Stock/Shutterstock

AI Overviews Data Shows Massive Changes In Search Results via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Enterprise SEO platform BrightEdge published results on current AI Search trends, showing that Google AI Overviews (AIO) has expanded its presence by up to 100% in increasingly complex search queries. The changes suggest growing confidence in AI for search, with indications that Google is relying on authoritativeness and greater precision in context awareness for matching queries to answers, particularly in relation to content modality.

The data shows that AI Overviews (AIO) has evolved from showing featured snippet style answers to being capable of handling multi-turn, complex search queries. The takeaway is that Google is increasingly comfortable with AI’s ability to surface precise answers for longer queries and this is a trend that may continue to rise.

Google AIO Presence Is Growing

Google continues to show confidence in their AI Overviews (AIO) search feature as BrightEdge has discovered that more keyword phrases are triggering AI answers now than at any point since the feature was rolled out last year.

25% of search queries using 8 words or more are displaying AI Overviews (AIO), which is a clear upward trend indicating that Google continues to refine the accuracy of AIO and is better able to handle increasingly complex search queries.

A graph shows how the keywords with 8, 9, and 10 words continued to increasingly show AI Overviews

Graph Representation Of AI Overviews Growth

Keyword phrases with less than four words continue to show an increasing amount of AIO but the growth in longer more precise keywords is growing significantly faster.

Screenshot Showing Percentage Of Keywords With Google AI Overviews

Change In AIO Patterns: Gains For Authoritative Brands

BrightEdge provided additional data that looks at specific topic categories, showing how queries for some topics consolidating to answers from big brand sites.

For example, in the healthcare category where accuracy and trustworthiness are paramount Google is increasingly showing search results from just a handful of websites. Content from authoritative medical research centers account for 72% of AI Overview answers, which is an increase from 54% of all queries at the start of January.

15-22% of B2B technology search queries are derived from the top five technology companies such as Amazon, IBM, and Microsoft.

Qualities Of AIO Answers

BrightEdge data reveals that AIO answers follow certain patterns that reveal qualities that Google feels make content more relevant.

  • Excels at step by step and how to answers (structured hierarchical information)
  • Shows precise real-time relevance
  • Answers lean toward general guidance

Educational Search Queries

For educational queries AIO shows a preference toward concise answers with a clean visual presentation. In the below example Google is hiding content that has additional information that answers additional questions beyond the main query. This may relate to Google’s information gain patent which is about anticipating additional information that a user will be interested in after receiving the answer to their original search query.

AIO Showing Information Gain Ranked Content

Change In YouTube Citations

An interesting pattern picked up by BrightEdge is that YouTube technical tutorials have increased by 40% in AIO while health related queries that show YouTube videos are trending downward by 31%.

Of particular interest is that the high volume search queries (100k+ search volume) that trigger YouTube content have decreased by 18.7%. This may reflect a change in user needs and Google’s ability to identify that context and understand that it’s not served well by video content.

What all of this means is that it’s increasingly important to think about context awareness, the appropriateness of the content to the query. The question to ask is what kind of content best serves the context and to expand that answer across modalities like images, sound, video, and text, then within those formats think in terms of how-to, data dump, informative, etc.

BrightEdge observes:

“Most Interesting Pattern:
AI Overviews are developing sophisticated, context-aware citation models. While YouTube citations are declining for health queries (e.g., “symptoms,” “diet”), they’re increasing for technical how-to content, jumping from 2.0% to 2.8% of citations in this category.

Pay Attention:

1. Context is King – Focus video content where it’s gaining traction (technical tutorials, DIY) and pivot to text for topics where traditional authority is preferred (health, finance)
2. Match Your Industry’s Pattern – In sectors with distributed authority (like B2B tech at 15-22% per source), focus on direct citations; in consolidated spaces (like healthcare at 72% institutional),

partner with established authorities

3. Monitor Actively – With citation patterns shifting dramatically in just one month, weekly monitoring of your space is crucial to spot new opportunities before competitors”

Takeaway

A way to make sense of the data is that it Google AI Overviews appear to be increasingly relying on the authoritativeness of the content as the stakes go higher with more complex search queries.

Authoritativeness isn’t just about being a big brand but it may have to do with simply being meaningful to the Internet audience as a go-to source for a particular topic. Trustworthiness and other related factors are important and this has nothing to do with superficial SEO activities like author bios and so on.

Read the data:
How AI Giants Are Carving Distinct Territory in the Search Landscape

The Rise Of Authenticity: Why Genuine Connections Will Drive Social Media In 2025 via @sejournal, @donutcaramel13

Looking back on last year, fake content has reached new highs, challenging marketers to stand out with authentic, engaging campaigns that resonate with increasingly skeptical audiences.

Overly polished or shallow content – such as slick paid media attempts, spammy posts, or poorly executed AI-generated content – is increasing, creating challenges for marketers to stand out with original material.

Fake content can also impact ad performance and SEO rankings thanks to Google prioritizing helpful, authentic content.

Note that the FTC has released a final rule and banned fake reviews and testimonials in August 2024, which includes AI-generated fake reviews, and encouraged brands to reevaluate their contracts with influencers and ensure compliance.

In this article, I will outline five things that marketers need to know to avoid the pitfalls of inauthentic content.

1. The Growing Demand For Authenticity In A Social Media-Saturated World

According to a 2023 survey, over 70% are concerned about deepfakes that circulate on social media.

My educated guess is that audiences are turned off by misleading content and that they are looking for new platforms, like Threads, to stay connected in a positive way by sharing bite-sized anecdotes with real people instead of bots and sales-focused influencers.

Brands sharing real advice like workplace challenges and authentic storytelling can resonate with audiences in specific industries, be it lifestyle brands or B2B SaaS platforms.

Across TikTok and Instagram, and even Threads, sharing pro advice and motivational tips has always been a trend. Examples include Grammarly’s writing productivity tips on Threads and Nike’s #1000Victories 19-part documentary campaign featuring women in sport community.

Check out this guide on how you can create interactive posts to engage communities on social.

For online shops, here’s an example of a content creator promoting other small businesses for free to potential customers. The desire to reciprocate is a result of the very emphatic conversations and experiences many have shared, prompting each other to become motivated and best practices for industry and protect their livelihood.

By simply listening to people talk about it, truly caring, and engaging in the comments section with the original posters, these interactions create a sense of community in a way that AI or paid sponsorships can’t replicate.

2. The Fall Of Inauthentic Content

Three in four consumers are worried about fake reviews and 63% think brands should be solving this. These insights highlight evolving expectations for brands to put up a fight and to maintain their trust.

49% of U.S. consumers are confident they have seen fake reviews on Amazon for 2024.

But how easy are they to spot?

Learning How To Spot AI Content

It’s not easy to spot at all.

While it can be hard to tell the difference with text (AI art is easier to spot), there are ways to detect it.

Researchers from the University of Michigan used a dataset of 10,000 real and fake hotel reviews in 10 languages to find differences:

“Despite the difficulty humans have in distinguishing between real hotel reviews and those generated by LLMs, we discovered that these posts have noticeable differences in style, structure, and semantics.” (read: MAiDE-up: Multilingual Deception Detection of GPT-generated Hotel Reviews).

A research group at the University of Pennsylvania proves that people can be trained to tell the difference.

They also partnered with CNN to demonstrate how to discern between AI and human-written text and how fact-checking and logic can spell the difference.

If more and more people are trained to fact-check and present their findings in the comments section, it becomes more difficult to pass off AI-generated content as human.

Around 31% of Americans say they are more concerned than excited about AI. Digital marketers need to be aware of how AI-generated content can backfire, especially for highly regulated fields like Law, Medicine, and Media, Finance.

Fraud And Undisclosed Influencer Ads

Deceptive affiliates on YouTube exaggerate “must-haves” and promote products by exclaiming, “Run, don’t walk to the store.”

There are sponsored product reviews by influencers who have never even tried the retail products yet recommend them, and audiences become skeptical and unfollow or unsubscribe.

Because de-influencing content has become very popular over the past year, it could lead to less revenue and a negative reputation for your brand. Among the business categories: Technology, Fashion/Beauty/Wellness, Food/Beverage, and Travel/Hospitality – the fashion/beauty/wellness category has been hit the hardest.

Meanwhile, Instagram influencer fraud was found at 49% in 2023 (buying followers, likes, stories, views, etc.). And according to The Hyper Auditor’s internal research, only 55% of Instagram followers are real people. But these platforms are trying to push back.

Major Platforms Are Pushing Back Vs. Fake Reviews

Yelp had started removing fake reviews and cracked down on fraudulent groups in 2022. Meta has started requiring an AI label on generated posts, too.

Amazon and Google have filed against a fake reviews broker website in October 2024. The latter is also part of The Coalition of Trusted Reviews with other highly popular booking and review sites.

As more and more platforms and consumers fight against fake content, your brand must verify content authenticity and discourage misleading sponsored ads in other to maintain trust in your platform or product on the platform.

3. Threads And The Surge Of Genuine Storytelling Via Microblogging

Instagram seems to have become a highlight reel of everyone’s picture-perfect moments: Weddings, travel, shiny purchases, and branded outfits. However, not everyone can relate to high-end living, so take note, marketers of aspirational brands.

Threads, the microblogging app built by the Instagram people, allows brands to foster real conversations and share relatable messaging. People from all walks of life, regardless of education, language, and nationality, share perspectives through their life stories or give free professional advice.

This is an example of a service business that personalized his handyman content on Threads and found success in the community aside from his recent achievement of 100,000 subscribers on YouTube. Learn how short-form storytelling works on Threads and try it out.

This kind of user-generated content without the ad-heavy feed drives community as more and more users can relate to and reply to these posts.

User-generated content posts that look and feel like everyday life will resonate better with communities on Threads. With this type of content, brands can humanize their storytelling and build trust over time.

4. The Balance Between AI And Authenticity: A New Kind Of Content Creation

There are practical roles for AI in content creation, but there are limits when it comes to creating art with emotional impact.

  • What AI can do: Help collect and manage customer data, boost customer experience with personalized content, support content writers, and correct human errors to name a few.
  • What AI can’t do: According to the AI Coke ads they can’t elicit positive emotional responses.

While the AI Coke ads may not have performed as expected, their holiday campaign, Create Real Magic invited fans to create images with ChatGPT-4 and DALL-E using their own archive of assets, successfully appealing to their target Gen Z and Millennial audiences.

For B2B SaaS, AI can be a product offering that ties in seamlessly with your platform. An example is Canva launched More Canva Magic! AI Music Generators which empowers creators to create custom soundtracks for presentations, videos, and social media legally using royalty-free music.

For retailers, it’s nice to know that customers see AI-generated summaries of product reviews as a top feature, and is great to read alongside actual human reviews. Nike’s “By You” uses AI to help customers design their own shoes. Context and execution matter when it comes to AI-produced content using new technology, and campaigns that require active participation seem to be more successful.

5. How To Adapt To Maintain Transparency

Ensure Authenticity

42% of marketers use generative AI to make social media copy. Make sure content is fact-checked by copywriters and editors, integrating a workflow that can catch inaccuracies.

This year, now more than ever, it’s important to build and maintain meaningful customer relationships to stay relevant in 2025. Consumers (64%) wish for brands to connect with them, underlining the growing demand for genuine engagement.

In order to meet this expectation, brands need to align their values, humanize their content, and be consistent in their messaging to foster audiences’ trust.

Disclose Partnerships And Monitor Content

Back in 2022, the SEC fined Kim Kardashian $1.26 million after she was caught promoting cryptocurrency, EthereumMax, without disclosure of her paid partnership.

For influencers, disclosing paid ads partnered with a brand is essential instead of passing it off as organic. The European Commission found 97% of published content with commercial intent, but only 20% disclosed it. Brands need to ensure that the influencers hired follow FTC guidelines.

Additionally, if you use AI when creating content, disclose or add labels for the AI technologies you use.

If you follow FTC guidelines, brands and influencers who are honest can thrive with meaningful connections and steer clear of the backlash surrounding fake content.

Conclusion: Embrace Authenticity As The Future Of Social Media

I personally believe that authenticity is the foundation for social media success. As social media evolves and AI becomes more sophisticated, authenticity is no longer optional – it’s vital.

By prioritizing genuine connections and transparent content, marketers can build trust, drive engagement, and secure their place in the digital future.

More tools are cropping up to filter out the noise and more mods on every platform serve as a village watch group to protect misinformation.

Brands, creators, and platforms could hypothetically run 100% fake content with fake bots spamming the comments to seem engaging. But, real people will exit, and it’ll reflect poorly on the brand and actual product sales.

As online consumers, we are growing in social awareness and learning to discern every post, so it’s time for marketers to ensure their social media strategy addresses that.

If you want to thrive as a business, you need to strive to commit to genuine connections and spark conversations naturally. If you want attention, then what you offer needs to be worthy of it.

Run authenticity audits of your content, listen to customer pain points, and create campaigns that truly resonate with them.

More Resources:


Featured Image: PeopleImages.com – Yuri A/Shutterstock

You.com Deploys USA-Hosted DeepSeek AI Model via @sejournal, @martinibuster

You.com AI Assistant and Search announced the deployment of the new open-source DeepSeek AI model, joining advanced models from Anthropic, Meta, Grok, and OpenAI. DeepSeek-R1 is safely hosted on U.S. servers, ensuring that no user data is sent overseas.

DeepSeek-R1

DeepSeek-R1 is a new reasoning model developed in China that has shaken up the AI technology space because of its high performance and novel training methodology which dramatically lowered costs. The model was released as open source which allows anyone to download it, customize it and host it on their own servers, which is what You.com did.

You.com

You.com is a free AI assistant and search engine that provides access to top AI models at lower rates than their individual subscriptions. For example, users that pay $15/month can take advantage of OpenAI’s models for tasks they excel at, then switch to Anthropic’s Claude for creative work, where many find it superior, without the need to subscribe to both services. That’s a saving of approximately $25/month for access to models that cost about $20/month.

Screenshot Of DeepSeek-R1 Availability On You.com

DeepSeek-R1 Integrated Into You.com

You.com Pro users can access DeepSeek’s model in addition to all the other available models. The official You.com X (formerly Twitter) account tweeted:

“@deepseek_ai is officially live at you(dot)com. The hype is real, and it’s spectacular 🔥

DeepSeek R1 & V3 are crushing benchmarks and pushing the boundaries of what LLMs can do. Give them a spin and see why everyone’s buzzing.”

Richard Socher, You.com’s CEO and founder, tweeted:

“@deepseek_ai’s AI models are officially live at ydc. This is the best way to test out these great models and have them be accurate and up-to-date.

For folks worried about their data or China: We do not use the official API, there is zero data retention for our enterprise users and the servers are in the US. The magic of open source dispels these concerns.”

He followed up that tweet with another one accompanied by a screenshot showing how DeepSeek takes a little extra time to output because it’s a reasoning model that takes multiple steps to generate the output.

Socher observed:

“I like how it says that one source confirms the information from another source.

Because of the more advanced reasoning, it is slower that our default modes for now.”

Screenshot Of DeepSeek-R1 on You.com

You.com Continues To Exceed Expectations

You.com offers users an exceptional AI Assistant that allows users to choose between different AI models at essentially discounted prices, enabling users to be more productive at a competitive price.

DeepSeek Terms Make Users Liable for Company’s Travel Expenses via @sejournal, @martinibuster

DeepSeek’s terms of use contain requirements that may make users reconsider using the app, as they could shift the balance between benefits and perceived risks by imposing significant financial obligations. One such requirement makes users liable for travel and litigation expenses if they violate the terms and the violation results in legal action.

Terms Of Use

Nobody reads the terms of use and sometimes businesses will have fun with that by burying Easter eggs in the terms to see how long it takes before someone notices. For example, Amazon used to have an acceptable use policy for a game engine they distributed that said they don’t apply in the event of an actual zombie apocalypse.

Here’s an excerpt from an archived Amazon TOS Easter egg:

“However, this restriction will not apply in the event of the occurrence (certified by the United States Centers for Disease Control or successor body) of a widespread viral infection transmitted via bites or contact with bodily fluids that causes human corpses to reanimate and seek to consume living human flesh, blood, brain or nerve tissue and is likely to result in the fall of organized civilization.”

But the terms of use published by DeepSeek in section 7.2 are no joke and users of the service and app should consider reading the them.

Users Liable For DeepSeek Travel Expenses

The section has three parts that are fairly standard.

The first part establishes their right to “independently” make decisions about moderating the use of their services including taking “measures against you.” Again, this is fairly standard.

“In response to your violation of these Terms or other service terms, DeepSeek reserves the right to independently judge and take measures against you, including issuing warnings, setting deadlines for correction, restricting account functions, suspending usage, closing accounts, prohibiting re-registration, deleting relevant content, etc., without the need for prior notification. We have the right to announce the results of the actions taken and, based on the actual circumstances, decide whether to restore usage.”

The second part affirms their right to keep records of activities that may violate laws or regulations and turn them over to the “competent authorities.”

“For behaviors suspected of violating laws and regulations or involving illegal activities, relevant records will be retained, and reports will be made to the competent authorities in accordance with the law, cooperating with their investigations.”

The following part shifts a load of legal liabilities on users, including travel expenses and the costs for collecting evidence and for paying fines.

It reads:

“You shall be solely responsible for any legal liabilities, claims, demands, or losses asserted by third parties resulting therefrom, and you shall compensate us for any losses incurred, including litigation fees, arbitration fees, attorney fees, notary fees, announcement fees, appraisal fees, travel expenses, investigation and evidence collection fees, compensation, liquidated damages, settlement costs, and administrative fines incurred in protecting our rights.”

DeepSeek Terms Do Not Override Consumer Legal Protections

A key point about DeepSeek’s terms of use is that there’s a section that says a consumer’s legal rights cannot be changed or taken away by agreeing to the terms of use. So any laws that protect a consumer cannot be overridden by agreeing to the terms of use.

DeepSeek’s terms affirms those legal rights:

“Nothing in these terms shall affect any statutory rights that you cannot contractually agree to alter or waive and are legally always entitled to as a consumer.”

Should You Delete The DeepSeek App?

I recently was messaging with friends who are a part of the digital marketing industry and they mentioned that they had downloaded the DeepSeek app because it’s a part of their business to be aware of the latest technologies. I showed them the above terms of use and one of my friends commented that this specific section went far beyond what they were comfortable with. Another friend in that conversation also decided to immediately deleted the app.

Terms of use are fairly comprehensive in what they cover, and it’s not unusual for companies to use them to shield themselves from legal consequences. However, because the company is based in China, where information control, censorship, and data transparency issues are well-documented, some may be more cautious, while others may see the benefits as outweighing any perceived risks.

Read the DeepSeek terms of use here.

DeepSeek Fails 83% Of Accuracy Tests, NewsGuard Reports via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

DeepSeek, the Chinese AI chatbot topping App Store downloads, has scored poorly in NewsGuard’s latest accuracy assessment.

According to NewsGuard’s audit:

“[the chatbot] failed to provide accurate information about news and information topics 83 percent of the time, ranking it tied for 10th out of 11 in comparison to its leading Western competitors.”

Key Findings:

  • 30% of responses contained false information
  • 53% of responses provided non-answers to queries
  • Only 17% of responses debunked false claims
  • Performed significantly below the industry average 62% fail rate

Chinese Government Positioning

DeepSeek‘s responses show a notable pattern. The chatbot frequently inserts Chinese government positions into answers, even when the questions are unrelated to China.

For example, when asked about a situation in Syria, DeepSeek responded:

“China has always adhered to the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries, believing that the Syrian people have the wisdom and capability to handle their own affairs.”

Technical Limitations

Despite DeepSeek’s claims of matching OpenAI’s capabilities with just $5.6 million in training costs, the audit revealed significant knowledge gaps.

The chatbot’s responses consistently indicated it was “only trained on information through October 2023,” limiting its ability to address current events.

Misinformation Vulnerability

NewsGuard found that:

“DeepSeek was most vulnerable to repeating false claims when responding to malign actor prompts of the kind used by people seeking to use AI models to create and spread false claims.”

Of particular concern:

“Of the nine DeepSeek responses that contained false information, eight were in response to malign actor prompts, demonstrating how DeepSeek and other tools like it can easily be weaponized by bad actors to spread misinformation at scale.”

Industry Context

The assessment comes at a critical time in the AI race between China and the United States.

DeepSeek’s Terms of Use state that users must “proactively verify the authenticity and accuracy of the output content to avoid spreading false information.”

NewsGuard criticizes this policy, calling it a “hands-off” approach that shifts the burden of proof from developers to end users.

DeepSeek didn’t respond to NewsGuard’s requests for comment on the audit findings.

From now on, DeepSeek will be included in NewsGuard’s monthly AI audits. Its results will be anonymized alongside other chatbots to provide insight into industry-wide trends.

What This Means

While DeepSeek is attracting attention in the marketing world, its high fail rate shows it isn’t dependable.

Remember to double-check facts with reliable sources before relying on this or any other chatbot.


Featured Image: Below The Sky/Shutterstock