It’s common for brands to use AI for all types of content creation. For better or worse, that includes user-generated content (UGC), but there’s a huge difference between fake AI-generated product endorsements and AI-powered UGC.
There’s a rise in tools that streamline how brands collect and showcase user-created content and other social proof, and they’re worth exploring.
Let’s talk about UGC and AI UGC, their core differences, ethical use cases and the potential of AI for actual user-generated content — without faking it.
UGC vs. AIGC vs. AI UGC: Spot the Real Customer, the Bot … or Both?
There are many similar acronyms at play here, so let’s start by making each clear:
What Is UGC?
User-Generated Content (UGC) is authentic and audience-created. It’s content, such as a review or a social media post, that references a brand, product, service or experience without a brand having paid the poster to call attention to them. Think product or service reviews, organic social media content or blog posts, testimonials and unboxing videos.
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What Is AIGC?
AI-generated content (AIGC) is fully machine-made, like ChatGPT text outputs or increasingly common Sora-generated videos. Often generated from a prompt — and ideally refined afterward — AIGC may have human involvement, but the bulk comes mostly from algorithms.
What Is AI UGC?
AI UGC is a bit more ambiguous. It could mean two different things:
- AI tools that generate human-like, uncanny valley-type videos or fake textual reviews to promote products. A quick Google search for “AI UGC tools” reveals just how many of these applications are out there, presumably to cast a quick image of ‘authenticity’ in the absence of true UGC.
- Real user-generated content from real people that has been initiated by, enhanced or repurposed with AI.
As lines continue to blur between authentic and automated content, brands must focus on maintaining audience trust. While AI can amplify creativity and boost efficiency, it can also introduce skepticism when audiences feel confused about who (or what) created a piece of content. Prospective customers should never have to guess whether what they’re seeing reflects a real experience or a synthetic one.
AI undoubtedly makes this trickery easier to conduct and increasingly difficult for audiences to spot, too. But that’s just the evil way to use the technology for UGC, and where there’s malevolence, there’s also benevolence. Let’s explore how to leverage AI ethically in the facilitation of UGC.
How Real UGC Actually Works (and Why Authenticity Still Beats Scalability)
UGC thrives on authenticity. That’s kind of the whole point. It’s the product of genuine enthusiasm, personal experience, and a shared sense of identity between brand and audience. Understanding how UGC really works means understanding why (and how) people create it in the first place.
How Brands Source UGC
It’s entirely possible to stumble upon unprompted UGC in the wild. For example, if your brand provides a genuinely great product and proactive customer service, happy customers might be compelled to tell all about their experience on social media or through an unsolicited Google review.
That’s all well and good, but a big part of building an active UGC pipeline is to encourage and cultivate it among your customers. Successful UGC strategies typically use campaigns, incentives and social proof loops to spark participation:
- Campaigns might involve contests or calls for testimonials that invite audiences to share experiences in a structured way.
- Incentives, like discounts or spotlighting/reposting user posts on Instagram, encourage participation without compromising authenticity.
- Social proof loops take it further: When people see others posting, reviewing or celebrating a product or service, they might be more likely to join in. UGC often fuels more UGC.
Why Audiences Create UGC
UGC’s sole purpose isn’t just to boost brands or facilitate the next purchase. A lot of the time, people post because they want to contribute to a community of like-minded folks. Recognition (from the brand or peers), shared fandom and relatability are strong drivers of UGC. When someone shares a photo of their favorite skincare product or a video unboxing a new gadget, they’re signaling both their taste and community affiliation.
UGC taps into a few fundamental psychological drivers:
- Community: People crave connection and validation from like-minded groups.
- Identity: Sharing content reinforces who we are, or who we aspire to be, through the brands we align with.
- Credibility: Peer voices carry more weight than polished brand messages. Authentic UGC is our modern version of word-of-mouth, which can be far more persuasive than any paid ad.
The inherent human layer that makes UGC what it is makes it a powerful tool, especially in this AI content era. But how can you harness the power of each to streamline or amplify everything while maintaining high-quality content standards and authenticity instead of turning to TikTok product pusher AI avatars?
AI Tools and User-Generated Content: Frenemies or Creative Co-Pilots?
Is AI enhancing real human creativity, or quietly replacing it? There’s an argument to make on either side of this fence, and honestly, the sheer number of options out there that offer to generate viral AI UGC videos makes me question if we really are losing our way.
But I’m a glass-half-full kind of guy and choose to be hopeful. So, here are a few UGC tools that employ AI algorithms for user content the right way — by optimizing processes, prompting customer participation and streamlining common UGC pipeline workflows.
TrueLoyal
TrueLoyal is an enterprise-grade SaaS loyalty and rewards platform that empowers brands to design and deploy data-driven loyalty programs across channels. It emphasizes not just transactional loyalty but advocacy, community and deep customer engagement through personalized, omnichannel experiences.
Key AI features:
- Predictive analytics and behavioral segmentation to personalize rewards and engagement.
- Churn prediction and next-best-action automation to keep customers engaged.
- Reward triggers, gamification and multi-dimensional loyalty engines that react in real time to user behavior.
Skeepers
Skeepers is a UGC, review and feedback management platform built for brands (especially e-commerce) looking to collect, manage and activate authentic user content and reviews at scale. It offers a suite of tools, including verified reviews, influencer campaigns, brand communities, feedback loops and more, with AI powering many of the workflows.
Key AI features:
- AI-driven review summarization, sentiment detection and automated categorization to turn large volumes of reviews into insights.
- Smart influencer/creator matching and campaign optimisation (for micro & nano influencers), enabling brands to scale UGC generation.
Kale
This one doesn’t tout AI as part of its core offering, but I think it’s a cool tool and really emphasizes the authenticity message I’ve been trying to drive home in the blog, so I wanted to include it.
Kale is a creator-rewards platform where everyday customers can get rewarded for posting about their favourite brands. It aims to democratize brand collaboration by enabling users — even without huge follower counts — to participate in branded content creation and earn from it. On its For Brands page, it has a tagline that reads, “Reward customers, not influencers,” and I think that’s beautiful.
Key features:
- Reward mechanics tied to content creation: Creators post about brands, submit content and get paid based on reach and engagement (unique viewers, status levels).
- A streamlined system for brands to launch challenges or content tasks and for creators to opt in.
- A transparent payout model and tiered creator statuses with clear criteria for rewards.
Beyond these tools, there are still a couple of other use cases for pure generative AI when it comes to UGC, without turning to avatars:
- Subtitles: Popular platforms like TikTok have built-in AI-driven captioning features that make authentic UGC more accessible across regions and languages. If you’re not on TikTok, there are plenty of third-party AI subtitle tools that can do the same thing, like Canva’s AI Caption Generator.
- Voiceovers: We’re all familiar with that TikTok AI voice. Love it or hate it, it’s a great way to make UGC more accessible, just like subtitles do. If you post UGC video content across other platforms, look for built-in AI voiceover options or try a third-party app like Freepik’s text-to-speech tool.
- Translation: Tools like Synthesia can translate your UGC ad campaigns into multiple languages for more personalized distribution and targeting across regions.
AI UGC: Yay or Nay?
I’ll always discourage using AI to straight-up imitate your target audience or ideal customer to win over new ones. That’s inherently deceiving, no matter how an AI UGC video generator tries to spin it. Yes, I realize paid influencers are the same kind of deal — the human versions of these AI avatars — but at least there’s an acknowledgement of the potential for bias.
There are plenty of AI tools out there that focus on other aspects of the UGC pipeline that don’t set out to deceive, but optimize, streamline and encourage genuine customer feedback. Those are the ones I believe are worth exploring to scale your UGC successes.
