A sham baking website in Morocco introduced "Elena" — a cake blogger whose face was actually an AI-altered version of actress Emily Blunt's — in a scam to lure visitors.
Here's what to know
Futurism reported that ad-tracking startup Decrypt Ads identified roughly 2,100 domains that appeared to be AI "slop" sites posing as recipe blogs run by real chefs and home cooks.
Security expert and Decrypt Ads researcher Zach Edwards found around 400 suspicious sites before using "technical fingerprints" to detect hundreds more.
The report said the sites are flooding Google and social media platforms with fake recipes and fabricated author identities. Edwards said the operators are "super aggressive on Pinterest, super aggressive on Twitter, on Facebook," describing a strategy to capture traffic anywhere food photos can spread, per Futurism.
AddCakes was the baking site said to be run by Elena, portrayed as a mom who turned to baking to reconnect with her roots, but the author's image was clearly that of Blunt, known for films including The Devil Wears Prada and A Quiet Place.
More background
Decrypt Ads said recipe websites have become one of the most consistent growth areas for deceptive AI publishing. People often assume a cook developed and tested the dish, especially when a site presents the author as someone with impressive culinary experience or a polished personal story.
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Edwards said that trust is exactly what these sites exploit. "But none of these recipes have probably been cooked — zero of them by the actual owners or authors — and to me that's the scary part," he told Futurism.
He also said some operators are publishing "sometimes dozens of recipes a day" through "an automated publishing pipeline."
Edwards warned that consumers can face risks when sites use Chinese and Russian adtech partners, raising privacy concerns.
What can be done?
Edwards said his team expected the operators to conceal ownership, so it traced the network through shared technical patterns.
The project could help advertisers avoid spending money on deceptive sites and make it harder for operators to remain hidden.
"If you load this website and you don't block ads, your data is going to, basically, authoritarian countries," Edwards told Futurism.
The issue also affects legitimate food creators. Many of these AI sites are likely scraping ideas from real bloggers who actually test, photograph, and publish their work, then using automation to churn out copycat content at a pace real cooks cannot match.
Edwards said the problem goes further than frustrating search results. "It's all a lie … and I think that the reason why we need to be holding AI publishers accountable is because they don't care about their audience," he said.
Where can I learn more?
AI-generated content includes fake online personas, bad recipe advice, and privacy concerns.
• On TikTok, a creator who ate AI slop recipes for a week showed how unreliable automated cooking advice gets.
• On Instagram, energy-sucking accounts triggered outrage after users realized the profiles were synthetic.
• Coca-Cola's Saudi Arabia campaign raised digital surveillance concerns as AI tools tracked consumer behavior.
• As consumer distrust spreads online, brands are proving ads aren't made with AI.
• On Fable, offensive reader summaries exposed how consumer AI tools can generate harm.
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