Google will now disclose which ads are made with AI

Google is rolling out a new feature aimed at helping people understand when an ad they’re seeing was made using AI technology.

AI makes it easier for businesses to create ads, place their brand’s products in various settings, and save money on real-world e-commerce photography. But it can also be misleading if consumers don’t know that what they’re looking at isn’t a real product photo. While Google prohibits misleading and deceptive ads, an ad can still leverage AI to create some type of synthetic or digitally altered content. Until now, that’s something Google only required election ads to disclose.

The tech giant said the new consumer-facing feature will be introduced to the “My Ad Center” panel, which anyone globally can access by clicking the three-dot menu or the info icon on the ads they see via Google Search, YouTube, and Google Discover.

This panel already lets users block or report ads and learn more about the advertiser or why the ad was shown, among other things. Now users also see an option that says “How this ad was made,” which will indicate if the ad was created or edited with AI.

Google says that when advertisers use its generative AI advertising tools to create ads, the disclosure will be automatically enabled.

However, if the ad is created elsewhere, the advertiser will need to use a new control to indicate if AI was involved in its creation — Google will not perform its own check to determine if that’s the case. In some markets, the ad may also be labeled as AI if local law requires it.