As AI Use Grows, Faux Enterprise Critiques Are In Sizzling Demand 

International searches for “pretend enterprise critiques” have skyrocketed — growing 1,026% – up to now 12 months and companies are being urged to be on excessive alert to the development.

In keeping with evaluation, Google Search knowledge has proven that there have been 68,000 searches for this time period up to now month alone.

This displays that there’s rising concern amongst enterprise homeowners  – but additionally customers – in regards to the veracity of critiques and the way they will decide what’s actual and what’s not.

What’s the impression on companies?

“Critiques drive the whole lot,” says Mary Tamvakologos, Managing Director from AnyBusiness.com.au, which carried out the analysis. “Belief, clicks, bookings, footfall, conversions. So when pretend critiques unfold, SMEs really feel the hit instantly.”

Ecommerce giants like Amazon are combating to crack down on pretend critiques following a four-year probe by the UK’s Competitors and Markets Authority (CMA).

One of many greatest points was ‘catalogue abuse’, which is the place sellers take the critiques from high-performing merchandise so as to add on separate listings to falsely enhance star rankings.

For companies taking part in by the foundations, the pretend critiques means they’re dealing with unfair competitors. Nevertheless, they’re additionally being hit by pretend critiques that focus on their very own status and must furiously scramble to get these eliminated earlier than they harm gross sales.

AI aggravating the difficulty

In addition to driving the proliferation of faux accounts and faux merchandise, AI can be getting used to churn out pretend critiques. The issue is gargantuan.

TikTok Store not too long ago revealed its Security Report for January to June 2025. In simply six months, over 70 million pretend merchandise had been blocked, whereas over 700,000 vendor accounts had been shut down for fraudulent gross sales. The social media platform revealed {that a} staggering 1.4 million sellers had been prevented from even registering as they didn’t cross verification.

TikTok is itself utilizing AI, in addition to human reviewers to weed out pretend sellers, merchandise and critiques; however the issue is growing and even huge corporations are combating to maintain up.

SMEs don’t have the identical sources and so one dangerous pretend evaluation can take time to take down; and whereas it’s stay, it could actually impression the enterprise.

How can companies combat again?

Bosses must recognise that this can be a drawback to not be ignored and half of what’s being termed a wider “enshittiffication” of the web. As a substitute, enterprise homeowners have to be proactive.

The group at AnyBusiness encourages them to tighten their evaluation monitoring as pretend critiques normally observe patterns together with “sudden spikes, repetitive phrases, excessive language or a number of rankings inside minutes”.

Enterprise homeowners must examine evaluation platforms weekly to choose up on something suspicious; and flag critiques that they’re involved about right away. The group suggests establishing automated alerts to make this course of much less onerous on their time.

In the event that they do spot a pretend evaluation, Tamvakologos suggests they act quick by calmly acknowledging the remark; clarifying the details however with out feelings after which inviting the client to proceed the dialog offline. It will clearly hit a lifeless finish if the evaluation is AI-generated however exhibits transparency, which different readers will worth.

On the similar time, companies should log the whole lot wanted to counter a nasty pretend evaluation from buyer logs to fee knowledge. As Tamvakologos notes, “the extra detailed your proof, the quicker platforms will act” once you method them to assist.

Companies must also look to take each alternative to get actual critiques from actual prospects with e-mail follow-ups after gross sales in order that “real buyer suggestions outnumbers and outweighs the fakes”, says Tamvakologos.

She provides that the largest menace to companies is complacency. “Popularity is now a real-time asset — and defending it’s simply as vital as buying new prospects.”