08/25/2026
As of August 2nd, the EU's AI Act requires AI generated images to be machine readable and labelled as synthetic. Ad Standards Canada updated its guidelines last October, asking brands to disclose when an image was generated or significantly altered by AI.
None of this bans AI images. It just makes them visible.
So the question for brands stops being can we get away with it, and starts being what does it say about us when the customer can see the label.
This shoot was Danger Coffee's creatine launch. It sits alongside their coffee and speaks to the same people, but it's a genuinely new product. Creatine monohydrate blended with Danger Dust, their humic and fulvic trace minerals.
Here's the honest part. These images look clean. Clean enough that you could look at them and wonder whether they were generated.
What you can't see is everything underneath.
Nearly two years of learning this brand. Knowing how they actually use their images, so there's space where their type needs to land.
Dramatic light that falls correctly in every way. Real hands, the actual texture of the product - never an approximation, the real thing. It's in the way the light falls across the pouch. The bit of crinkle.
Real images build trust. Generated ones leave a question sitting there instead. What is their product really like?
As time goes on we will continue to see more images and design that all kind of looks the same. It lacks originality, real grain, and something just kind of 'off' about it that you can't tell what it is, but I can look and say that light doesn't actually fall that way.
Brands that invest in real photography and design will stand out in a market where everything is blending into one generic look. It makes me sad to see it, but I'm also excited for the brands that really value it.
