One speaker cast a solemn tone at the CIPR Annual Conference, predicting that 90% of online content will be AI-generated within the next four years.

Inducing audible gasps from your audience is probably stuff of fantasy for most conference speakers, but generative AI expert, Tamang Ventures director Nina Schick, achieved it within her first few presentation slides at the Chartered Institute of Public Relations’ (CIPR) Annual Conference this month.

They were more gasps of despair, however, than of pantomimic delight. “While it has been predicted that 90% of digital content will be AI-generated by 2030, I believe 2026 to be a more accurate prediction,” Schick had asserted. At the end of Schick’s talk, one attendee preluded their question by stating: “Well, that’s obviously quite horrifying.”

Two years ago, an FBI report warned that synthetic content would be the next big risk to businesses and organisations. Already, AI-generated content is used in the internal communications campaigns of many FTSE 500 companies.  

Schick’s prediction is supported by a report this year from Europol, which further describes businesses as being at risk of disinformation as “deepfakes can be used to generate false information” which can have a negative reputational impact. For example, “a threat actor could create a deepfake that makes it appear that a company’s executive engaged in a controversial or illegal act.”

Europol’s report gives a further example of how businesses are vulnerable to AI-generated criminal activity, describing how audio can permit people to “impersonate the CEO of a company” and subsequently influence employees.

While AI introduces brings a wealth of opportunity and creative possibilities, this is currently largely overshadowed by questions around deepfakes and ethical concerns.