DoubleVerify Data: AI Slop Hits 500M+ Impressions in First Half of 2026

by ExchangeWire PressBox on 14th Sep 2026 in News

DoubleVerify (DV) detected more than half a billion impressions of low-quality AI-generated content – or "AI slop" – during the first half of 2026, offering a new indication of its scale across the internet.

The figure includes AI slop impressions identified through DV's technology, as well as whether they were blocked from serving an ad or measured after an ad appeared.

The data also shows just how varied AI slop has become. In EMEA, travel was the No. 1 content category for AI slop, but significant volume was also detected across categories ranging from sports to technology/computing.

The top five categories for AI slop in EMEA were:

Travel: About destinations, tourism and travel.
Technology and computing: Focused on technology, computers, and related topics.
Violence: Focused on violent acts or events.
Sports: Global superstars and highlights.
Vehicle disasters: Involving crashes, accidents, and other transportation disasters.

The issue may be particularly consequential for brands in the UK. Nearly half (48%) of UK consumers say seeing a brand advertised alongside low-quality AI-generated content would negatively impact their perception of that brand, including 30% who say it would have a very negative impact.

"AI slop isn’t limited to a handful of websites or isolated corners of the internet," said Nayef Hijazi, VP of solutions and content marketing at DoubleVerify. "It’s appearing on a broad and growing range of content, with new sources emerging every day. That means identifying and avoiding individual pieces of content isn’t enough. Advertisers need a way to identify low-quality AI-generated content wherever it appears and keep their ads away from it. That can help protect their brands while reducing the advertising revenue that incentivises more of this content."

Advertising is an important part of the economics of AI slop. Low-quality AI content can be produced quickly and cheaply, creating an incentive to generate content at scale and monetise the resulting traffic through advertising. For example, DV recently uncovered a coordinated network of more than 200 AI slop domains where the bad actors left the AI prompts used to create the network in the sites’ code. By preventing ads from appearing alongside AI slop, advertisers can help reduce the financial incentive to produce more of it.

The findings are part of DoubleVerify's Global Insights: Media Quality in the Age of AI report, which is available for download HERE.