With rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), many companies have begun incorporating generative AI into their advertising strategies, producing unique and engaging commercials that transcend the limits of traditional advertising. Given the immense success of these campaigns, this research aims to investigate if AI-generated ads can outperform their human-made counterparts in increasing consumer demand, and if so, the factors contributing to their greater success. To answer these questions, we first conducted two case analyses on Nike’s “Never Done Evolving” ft. Serena Williams campaign and Coca-Cola’s “Y3000” campaign. Next, we devised a theoretical framework of three potential success factors for AI-generated ads (complexity, creativity, and familiarity). Finally, a week-long field study was conducted on 240 Carnegie Mellon University students across different years and majors to study the effectiveness of AI-generated ads in increasing club membership of campus organizations, with club membership serving as a proxy for consumer demand. In this study, participants were randomly partitioned into four groups, with each group surveyed on how likely they were to join a club after viewing one of four posters (three AI-generated posters based on each factor of success and one human-made poster). Through this study, we discovered that although AI-generated posters are generally more effective than human-made posters in capturing people’s attention, their human-made counterparts are still more effective in increasing club membership. While AI-generated posters attract a larger audience, there is greater variation in the interest level of the audience. Future research can further explore the impact of AI advertisements on various aspects of marketing, such as click-thru rates and sales on different marketing platforms such as e-commerce.