Spotify is about to be flooded with AI-made ads, and I wonder if it will make much of a difference to businesses

Audio wallpaper

Spotify’s offer makes sense since advertising is key to its revenue. At the same time, not every business has the wherewithal to produce a good one or the resources to hire people or a firm to make it. For a smaller business, especially, advertising can cost resources in short supply.

Spotify pitches Gen AI Ads as a way to rapidly publish polished ads without needing to book a sound studio or hire Morgan Freeman (or a more affordable impressionist). I can see it as a huge deal for scrappy entrepreneurs trying to reach new audiences.

But just because you can make an ad doesn’t mean it will be good. Even a competent or outright brilliant ad doesn’t guarantee sales.

Because, let’s be honest, most ads are already annoying. Now imagine a world where half of them are spit out by a bot trained on corporate LinkedIn posts and “How to Sound Friendly” YouTube tutorials.

The risk is that instead of democratizing creativity, we’ll end up with a sea of samey-sounding voiceovers that make everything from indie bookstores to boutique sock brands feel like they’re all pitching for the same corporate team-building seminar. Spotify can claim that AI ads are produced creatively, but creativity isn’t preloaded in an AI model.

I’d bet the best AI-made ads are from businesses that would have made just as good a commercial without AI tools had they the same resources as a bigger company. I suspect most AI ads will be just audio wallpaper.

The example from Spotify doesn’t make me feel like my current coffee routine needs improvement. It’s just audio wallpaper.

Human interest

Paradoxically, if every ad sounds clean and competent because of AI, the only way to stand out may be to bring in a human voice people recognize. Cue the sudden boom in demand for celebrity voiceovers (but not Ryan Reynolds and his endless Cricket and Mint Mobile ads).

When every ad has the same polished AI-generated tone, a familiar voice will cut through the noise like your favourite song’s opening chords. That may drive up the cost of those voiceovers and set a new tier for advertising costs.

AI replicas of celebrity voices won’t level the playing field if the ‘live’ ads can boast of their non-AI origins. So we could end up in this bizarre situation where AI ads make it cheaper to enter the advertising game but more expensive to win it.

Ultimately, nobody likes ads, even if we tolerate them. We might laugh at a good one, but most of the time, we count down the seconds until the music or podcast returns.

If Gen AI Ads flood Spotify with a wave of pleasant but dull pitches, there’s a chance listeners will start noticing how synthetic everything feels and be annoyed.

Ironically, that could work out very well for Spotify. Because what’s the fastest way to get rid of ads on Spotify? Pay for Premium. In a roundabout way, all these new AI-generated ads could drive more people to fork over the cash for a subscription. I would be both appalled and impressed if Spotify’s play is to “use AI to draw in advertisers with cheaper and more efficient production, but ensure they are just irritating enough to upsell subscriptions.”

I don’t think AI ads are a bad idea. They’re just not a magic bullet for businesses. Lower-cost barriers are a big deal, and they sound decent enough. Whether they actually help people sell more dog treats, cologne, or artisanal sourdough starter kits depends entirely on whether the person listening is open to the product.

AI can help polish a diamond, but it can’t make one out of a chunk of concrete.