AI beat a pro designer on CTR: the optimization loop won, not the model
A Marketing Science field study ran a live Instagram campaign for an outdoor-activities brand and found an AI-generated portfolio pulled a 0.98% CTR versus 0.65% for a professional designer, roughly 51% higher. The catch is where the gain came from: an aesthetic-only image generator scored just 0.78%, so the Bayesian active-learning loop that generated, predicted, and field-tested candidates did the winning. The edge held 18 months later too, 3.38% vs 3.24%.