AI Images, Labels and News Demand

782/2025 Maja Adena, Eleonora Alabrese, Francesco Capozza, Isabelle Leader

We test whether AI-generated news images affect outlet demand and trust. In a pre-registered experiment with 2,870 UK adults, the same article was paired with a wire-service photo (with/without credit) or a matched AI image (with/without label). Average newsletter demand changes little. Ex-post photo origin recollection is poor, and many believe even the real photo is synthetic. Beliefs drive behavior: thinking the image is AI cuts demand and perceived outlet quality by about 10 p.p., even when the photo is authentic; believing it is real has the opposite effect. Labels modestly reduce penalties but do little to correct mistaken attributions.

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