Stop trying to look credible and give people something they can verify. Now that polish costs nothing to fake, the thing that still counts as evidence is a real person with a real stake, saying something in their own words, where your audience can work out who they are.
Here's how it shows up. Your department's changing how social housing gets allocated. It's contested, and the people affected are anxious and angry. You put out a clean, well-lit explainer with a presenter, some motion graphics and a calm voiceover. By lunchtime the top comment reads "Is this AI?" and the second one says "Paid actor." Nobody's engaging with the policy. They're arguing about whether the person on screen exists.
You didn't fake anything. It doesn't matter. You made something that looks exactly like the things that are faked, and that's now enough to lose the room.
The signal you relied on has stopped working
For thirty years, polish meant seriousness. Good production was expensive, so an organisation that spent the money was telling you it took the matter seriously. Your executive team grew up on that rule, and it used to be true.
Not any more. A smooth presenter, a perfect voice and a tidy animated diagram can now be made by anyone in an afternoon for close to nothing. A signal that costs nothing tells nobody anything. So people have quietly swapped the question they ask. They used to ask whether something looked professional. Now they ask whether they can verify it.
That's a harsher test, and most official communication fails it, because it was designed to pass the old one.
Why it costs you more than it costs a brand
A brand that gets written off as fake loses a sale. You lose something you can't buy back. If you're rolling out a contested policy, changing how a service is delivered, or restructuring a workforce, the people watching aren't going anywhere. They'll still be your tenants, your patients, your staff or your constituents next year. Every piece of communication you put out is either building a record they believe or one they've learned to discount.
And the discount shows up in places you'll pay for. More complaints and ministerials, because people don't trust the explanation they were given. Consultation submissions that argue with what they assume you meant, not what you said. Staff who screenshot the CEO's change video into the group chat with a caption, and treat everything after it as spin. None of that appears as a line item. All of it slows the thing you're trying to do.
What you'll try, and why it won't work
You'll lift the production values, on the theory that it looked cheap. It didn't. It looked smooth, and smoothness is exactly what synthetic content does best. Spending more makes you look more like the thing people are suspicious of.
You'll add a label or a line saying the content is real. That asks for the trust you don't have yet. Nobody reads a disclaimer and changes their mind.
You'll put someone more senior in front of the camera. On a contested change, the most senior person is usually the least believable, because they're the one with the most obvious reason to sell it.
Or you'll pull back to fact sheets and FAQs, which feels safer. It just leaves the space empty, and someone else will fill it with a phone and a strong opinion.
What still holds up
What survives the new test is documentary evidence. Documentary evidence is footage of a real person with a real stake, saying something in their own words, that your audience could verify if they wanted to.
Each part of that does work. Real means a named person your audience might recognise, or could find: the housing officer from their region, the tenant who's already been through the new process, the team leader who'll actually run the restructured roster. A real stake means they live with the outcome, so they've got a reason to tell the truth and something to lose if they don't. Their own words means unscripted, which means hesitation, a hard admission, the bit you'd normally cut. That hard bit is the most valuable ten seconds you've got, because it's the one part no fabricator would think to include.
This isn't an argument about values. It's about which material does the job. When we advised Freedom Home Care to film its clients unscripted, the reasoning was practical: a client talking about their own week, in their own way, can't be mistaken for an advertisement.
There's a second half to this, and it's the one that bites. Being verifiable isn't only about what's on screen. It's about whether you can show who that person is, when they said it and what they agreed to. If someone challenges a clip and you can't produce the release or remember who filmed it, you've got the same problem as the fake. Your records are now part of your credibility.
Where to start
Before you make anything for your next announcement, ask one question. Who in this situation could say this in a way people could verify? If the answer is only the minister or the CEO, you don't have a communication problem yet. You've got a missing-voices problem, and that's the thing to fix first.
If you'd like help working out who those people are and whether film's even the right move, that's what the Narrative Brief is for.
Questions people ask next
Should we label our content as real or not AI generated?
You can, but don't expect it to do much. A label asks the audience to take your word for it, and taking your word for it is exactly what they've stopped doing. What persuades people is material they can verify for themselves: a named person, in a place they know, saying something unscripted. Keep the label if your policy requires it, but don't rely on it.
Isn't unscripted footage too risky for a government agency?
It's less risky than being disbelieved. Unscripted doesn't mean unplanned. You choose who speaks, you agree the topic, they approve how they're shown, and you keep the consent records. What you give up is control over their exact words, and that loss of control is the reason people believe them. A scripted speaker carries all the risk of looking staged with none of the credibility.
Does this mean production quality doesn't matter any more?
Craft still matters. Polish as a signal doesn't. Clear sound, honest framing and an edit that doesn't twist what someone said are what let a real person come across properly. What's lost its value is the glossy finish that used to say an organisation had spent money. Spend on getting the right people and getting them right, not on making it shine.
How do we prove our footage is real if someone challenges it?
Keep a record of who appears, when and where it was filmed, who filmed it, and what each person agreed to. Store it with the footage, not in someone's inbox. If a clip is questioned, you can answer within the hour with names, dates and signed consent. Without that record, real footage is as hard to defend as a fake.