Upscaling invents. That is fine on skin, fabric and foliage, and it is a problem on type, logos and any fine structure a viewer knows the shape of, where invented detail reads as a defect.
The working order is: approve at working resolution, run the gates, then upscale the survivors and check the label again. Upscaling before selection is how a budget disappears into frames nobody ships.
Does upscaling improve AI image quality?
It improves resolution and can improve perceived sharpness. It does not fix composition, anatomy or a wrong label, and it can make a wrong label worse by making it legible.