TL;DR: New York signed a law requiring advertisers to disclose when AI-generated performers appear in commercial content. If your company runs ads with synthetic voices, AI-generated likenesses, digital avatars, or deepfake-style video in New York, you must now disclose that to consumers. This sounds narrow. It's not. The advertising industry has already gone deep on AI-generated content, and this law catches far more companies than you'd expect.
The Law Most Advertisers Haven't Read Yet
New York just quietly changed the rules for every company running advertisements with AI-generated content. The new law requires disclosure whenever an AI-generated performer appears in commercial advertising. The definition of "AI-generated performer" is broader than most people realize, and the scope catches creative work that many companies don't even think of as "AI-generated."
If you advertise in New York (which includes any digital ad that's visible to New York residents, so basically every digital ad), this law applies to you.
What Counts as an AI-Generated Performer
The law defines AI-generated performers broadly enough to capture the current state of the advertising industry's AI adoption:
Synthetic voices. AI narration and voiceover services have exploded in the past two years. Companies like ElevenLabs, Play.ht, and Murf.ai offer AI-generated voices that are virtually indistinguishable from human speakers. If your radio ad, podcast ad, YouTube pre-roll, or social media video uses an AI voice, that's an AI-generated performer under this law.
Digital humans and avatars. AI-generated spokespersons are increasingly common in e-commerce, product demonstrations, and social media marketing. Companies use them because they're cheaper than hiring talent, available 24/7, and infinitely customizable. Under this law, they require disclosure.
Deepfake-style modifications. Any time AI is used to alter a real person's appearance, voice, or performance in a way that creates a substantially different representation, that triggers the disclosure requirement. This includes AI lip-syncing (dubbing a performer's speech into another language using AI), AI age modification, and AI-enhanced or AI-replaced facial expressions.
AI-generated stock imagery with people. This is the one that catches the most companies. AI image generators (Midjourney, DALL-E, Stable Diffusion) are widely used to create stock photos for advertising. If those images include people (even if they're clearly stylized or illustrated), they may qualify as AI-generated performers depending on how realistically they're rendered.
Why This Matters More Than You Think
The obvious targets of this law are companies creating obviously synthetic content: the digital avatar reading a script on a product page, the clearly AI-generated voice on a radio spot.
But the advertising industry has integrated AI into the creative workflow in ways that are far less obvious:
AI-enhanced photo editing. Modern photo editing tools (including Adobe Photoshop's generative fill and Google's Magic Eraser) use AI to modify images in ways that go beyond traditional retouching. If AI substantially alters the appearance of a person in an advertisement, the disclosure question becomes relevant.
AI-powered A/B testing of creative. Some advertising platforms now use AI to generate variations of ad creative, including modifications to the human elements. If the AI creates a version of your ad where the model's expression is changed, or the background behind a spokesperson is replaced, you're in disclosure territory.
Influencer content with AI tools. Influencer marketing increasingly uses AI filters, voice modification, and AI-generated backgrounds. When an influencer uses AI to create content for your brand, and that content features AI-modified performers, the disclosure obligation may attach to your brand (depending on the contractual arrangement and the specific facts).
Localization and translation. AI dubbing services that translate video ads into multiple languages by synthesizing new voice tracks (and sometimes adjusting lip movements) are creating AI-generated performances. Your English-language ad might not trigger the law, but the AI-dubbed Spanish version might.
The Disclosure Requirements
The law requires "clear and conspicuous" disclosure. That phrase has a legal definition that's more specific than most advertisers realize.
"Clear and conspicuous" means the disclosure must be:
- Prominently placed (not buried in fine print or hidden behind a click)
- In a size and format that a reasonable consumer would notice
- In proximity to the AI-generated content (not on a separate page or at the end of a video)
- In language a reasonable consumer would understand (no technical jargon)
For different media, this creates different design challenges:
Video ads: The disclosure likely needs to appear on screen while the AI-generated performer is visible. A brief text overlay, a watermark, or an audio disclosure at the beginning of the content.
Audio ads: A verbal disclosure before or during the AI-generated voice performance.
Static images: A label or icon near the image, similar to how some platforms mark sponsored content.
Social media: The disclosure must be visible without requiring the viewer to expand or interact with the post. This eliminates the "see more" fold as a hiding place.
The Enforcement Question
New York has historically been aggressive about advertising law enforcement. The state Attorney General's office has brought actions against companies for misleading advertising practices, and the penalties can be substantial.
The AI disclosure law adds a new vector for enforcement. Every undisclosed AI performer in an advertisement visible to New York consumers is a potential violation.
Beyond state enforcement, the law creates a framework that plaintiffs' attorneys can leverage. If a company fails to disclose AI performers and a consumer can argue they were misled (they thought they were seeing a real person, they made a purchasing decision based on the apparent endorsement of a real human), that's a potential consumer protection claim.
The performers' unions (SAG-AFTRA in particular) have been vocal about AI replacing human performers in advertising. This law gives them, and the performers they represent, a legal tool to identify when AI performers are being used and to challenge undisclosed usage.
What Your Marketing Team Needs to Do
Audit Your Creative Pipeline
Go through every piece of advertising creative currently running in markets that include New York. Identify every element that involves AI:
- AI-generated or AI-modified images of people
- AI-generated or AI-cloned voices
- AI-created avatars or digital humans
- AI-enhanced video performances
- AI-translated or AI-dubbed content
This audit will be larger than you expect. AI has infiltrated the creative pipeline at multiple points, and many of those integration points weren't documented as "AI usage" when they were implemented.
Establish a Disclosure Protocol
Create a standard disclosure format for each media type your company uses. Get legal sign-off. Build the disclosure into your creative production workflow so it's automatic, not an afterthought.
Update Vendor and Agency Contracts
If you work with creative agencies, media buyers, or content creators, your contracts need to address AI disclosure. Specifically:
- Require vendors to disclose when AI is used in deliverables
- Establish responsibility for compliance (who ensures the disclosure appears in the final ad?)
- Include indemnification for non-disclosure by the vendor
Train Your Team
Your marketing team, creative team, and agency partners need to understand what triggers a disclosure obligation. This isn't intuitive. People who use Midjourney to create imagery for ads may not think of that as "using AI-generated performers." They need to make the connection.
Monitor Regulatory Expansion
New York is first, but this type of disclosure law is likely to spread. The EU AI Act already includes transparency requirements for AI-generated content. Other US states are considering similar legislation. Build your disclosure infrastructure to be flexible enough to accommodate additional jurisdictions as they come online.
The Creative Industry Shift
This law is part of a larger shift in how society treats AI-generated content. The era of passing off AI content as human-created is ending. Disclosure is becoming the norm, driven by legislation, platform policies, and public expectations.
For businesses, this isn't a burden. Transparency builds trust. Consumers who know a voice is AI-generated can still find the ad compelling. Consumers who discover after the fact that they were deceived feel manipulated.
Get ahead of the disclosure curve. The companies that are transparent about their AI usage will be better positioned than the companies that get caught trying to hide it.
Kaizen AI Lab helps companies audit their AI usage across creative and operational workflows, and build compliance frameworks that keep pace with evolving regulations.
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