Fake reviews have been a long major issue in digital marketing, whether it’s fake positives inflating a brand’s ratings and misleading consumers or fake negatives from disgruntled employees, competitors, or scammers trying to blackmail businesses. Our research uncovered that even before AI reviews, 23% were likely to be fake… and as Fast Company reported, now it’s even more fake AI reviews and it’s getting out of hand.
Disgruntled employees, difficult customers, or competitors normally pose a real threat because their reviews are often well written in a way that makes them look real. These aren’t your typical spammy, bot generated posts… as they sound like real customer experiences, complaints, making them hard to spot.
Scammers Blackmail Businesses with Fake AI Reviews
On the other side, scammers who often try to blackmail businesses, have been much easier to spot. Their so called “reviews” often contain many grammar mistakes, vague complaints that don’t make any sense, or generic one line phrases like “bad customer service” or “I wouldn’t recommend”. Their strategy often simple, they operate at scale by using bots or hiring low wage workers in third world countries, flood businesses with tons of fake reviews, and hope some will respond and pay to stop the attacks. In fact, businesses that ignored these threats often found that the scammers quickly moved on to other targets, that’s why it was advised not to reply to fake reviews or follow up emails from so called “reputation companies” that can take care of it.
However, AI has changed the game. Now anyone can use tools like ChatGPT or DeepSeek to generate fake reviews that look and sound realistic and authentic, include specific details, look different, and it can be posted at scale causing real damage to a company’s reputation. Those reviews even have an avatar with a real photo, often AI generated face that look just like a real customer.
Challenge to Spot Fake AI Reviews
Often business owners themselves might not recognize that they’re dealing with AI generated reviews and may engage, thinking they’re dealing with legitimate customer concerns. Imaging being a cook at the kitchen or a front desk employee taking blame for something you didn’t do, where in fact the review about bad food or poor service was written by AI!
This opens more doors for scammers to get responses from concerned businesses, escalate their attacks with even more “realistic” AI generated fake reviews, and then pose as reputation management firms offering to “fix” the problem. Even at this stage, some business owners might not realize that they’ve been dealing with scammers, still believing they are hiring a reputable firm to handle and respond to real customer complaints.
The Rise of AI-Generated Positive Reviews Creates An Unfair Advantage in Online Marketplaces
It’s not just fake negatives that are a problem, AI-generated positive reviews already dominating marketplaces as well. It’s been reported that many reviews on platforms like Temu are fake and / or AI generated, same with Amazon where Reddit users spot fake AI reviews at scale. It creates unfair advantage for businesses that create and post those fake positive AI reviews, while hurting consumers and businesses that play by the rules.
Review platforms like Google My Business, Yelp, Trustpilot and others are still playing catch-up and haven’t publicly addressed the issue. However, if they don’t act soon, they risk becoming irrelevant as AI generated reviews will damage consumer trust and people might visit those platforms less and less. In fact, many reported that platforms like Reddit, Linkedin and Quora already becoming irrelevant due to overuse of AI generated content like reviews or advices from so called “experts”.
Actions Businesses Can Take To Combat Fake AI Reviews
At the same time businesses can’t afford to sit back and wait. They should monitor online reviews, take action when needed and protect themselves from AI review manipulations, whether it’s “fake review bombing” from scammers or unfair competitors.
