AI slop has entered your cart on TikTok Shop.
According to Business Insider, TikTok Shop and other ecommerce platforms, like Amazon, have an AI problem. Fraudsters are reportedly using generative AI tools to create fake brands, dupes, and products, tricking users into paying for things that are not real and do not exist.
“It’s organized crime, to be honest,” Nicolas Waldmann, who leads TikTok Shop’s governance and experience external affairs team, told Business Insider. “They’re trying to basically go through and sell, and of course, never deliver anything, and then run with the money.”
This type of fraud is not a new phenomenon. Scammers are fond of scamming, and they will find a way, but AI has made it increasingly more difficult to catch them. Amazon, for its part, is using AI to track scammers who use AI. TikTok also employs AI to prevent this kind of malicious seller, but it also utilizes human moderation. Waldmann told Business Insider that the company uses “AI to basically deal with AI.” What a fun little cycle.
In a report published on Thursday, TikTok said that in the first six months of 2025, it “rejected more than 70 [million] products before being listed, a 40 [percent] increase from the previous six months.”
“As our seller and creator community grows globally, and our ability to detect prohibited products improves, the number of violative products we prevent from landing on our platform has increased,” TikTok said.
This is not a brand new problem. In August, PC Mag reported that scammers were conducting a “widespread, ongoing, malicious campaign” that allowed them to steal cryptocurrency and users’ personal data.
