TikTok’s AI labels might not be effective, so the app is educating its users

TikTok was one of the first social media companies to add labels to AI-generated content. Those tags were first teased in 2023 and added to the app a year later.

Unfortunately, AI labels don’t seem to be as effective as TikTok wants them to be. A 2025 study found that “having labels did not significantly change [user] engagement behaviors.” Another report from the same year concluded that “labels that simply informed participants that content was generated using AI tended to have little impact on respondents’ stated likelihood of engaging with their assigned post.”

Most critically, the deluge of AI slop on TikTok isn’t subsiding, labels be damned. Kapwing recently reported that more than half of the posts recommended to new TikTok accounts are low-effort, AI-generated videos.

TikTok is responding to all those findings by trying a new approach. The app’s latest transparency measures include educational pieces of content that are meant to improve AI literacy among users. In tandem with partners like NoFiltr and Rasberry Pi Foundation, TikTok is teaching its community how to recognize AI-generated content — and how they themselves can use the technology responsibly.

Alongside that effort, TikTok is continuing to crack down on accounts that misuse AI. The app reported that it removed 86 million fake accounts

during the first three months of 2026, and it plans to improve its detection tools to support future takedowns.

TikTok’s desire to move beyond AI labels is prudent, but will its new measures be visible enough to be impactful? YouTube, for example, has educational AI materials of its own, and it has helped users cultivate social media literacy by turning its Hit Pause hub into one of the world’s most-watched channels.

Ultimately, TikTok’s AI literacy efforts may not move the needle so long as the app continues making it easy and profitable to post genAI videos. What’s needed is a sustainable, long-term solution, and one of TikTok’s external partners may be able to provide a push in the right direction.

TikTok was one of the first major social apps to add C2PA labels to its videos. Those tags make it easier to identify AI-generated content as it moves across platforms. Now, TikTok is doubling down by joining the C2PA’s Steering Committee. That move will promote the proliferation of C2PA labels across the internet, but even if all of the Big Tech firms put their heads together, the high volume of AI slop on the internet will continue to present problems that are tricky to solve.