California requires AI-performer disclosures in advertisements under new law

California has enacted a new disclosure rule for advertisements that use artificial-intelligence-generated performers, requiring marketers to make clear when an apparent person, voice or digital figure is synthetic. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 1050, written by state Sen. Angelique Ashby, on Sept. 16 at SAG-AFTRA’s headquarters alongside the bill’s author. The measure requires explicit disclosure when AI-generated performers are used to sell a product or service, and prohibits the continued use of an advertisement found to violate the requirement. Under the bill, it is unlawful to use, or cause to be used, a synthetic performer in the creation or dissemination of an advertisement in California without a clear and conspicuous disclosure. The disclosure must appear close to the performer and remain visible or audible long enough for a reasonable consumer to understand that the performance is not by a real human being. The Senate Judiciary Committee’s legislative analysis says acceptable wording must be substantially similar to “this performance features a synthetic digital performer” or “no human performer is depicted.” A compliant label must be difficult to miss, readily understandable and presented in a way that a reasonable consumer would notice, read and comprehend, taking account of the medium, format and context. The administration described the rule as covering video and audio advertising. The bill’s definition of an advertisement is broader, encompassing a message, statement, audiovisual recording, digital communication or other representation distributed in any manner that is intended, or reasonably expected, to induce the purchase of goods or services. A synthetic performer is defined as a human-life digital figure, voice or representation created wholly or partly through AI, machine learning or computational techniques. The definition excludes material based on, or intended to depict, a particular identifiable natural person under California’s existing digital-likeness law. Violations of the disclosure mandate constitute violations of California’s False Advertising Law and can be enforced through the state’s Unfair Competition Law. The bill is framed as a factual commercial disclosure rather than a ban on synthetic content. It does not restrict the creation, distribution or exhibition of such content, or regulate an advertisement’s expressive or informational content beyond the required label. There is also an exemption for promotional advertisements for expressive works, including films, television programmes, streaming content, documentaries and video games, when the synthetic performer’s use in the promotional material is consistent with its use in the underlying work. Newsom said Californians should know when a person selling them something “isn’t a person at all,” presenting the measure as a consumer and performer protection. SAG-AFTRA sponsored the bill, and its national executive director and chief negotiator, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, said the union had helped craft language intended to make clear when audiences are seeing synthetic rather than human performers. The legislation won a 7-0 vote in the Senate Privacy, Digital Technologies and Consumer Protection Committee. It was supported by the California Federation of Labor Unions, the California Institute for Technology & Democracy, the Music Artists Coalition and TechEquity Action. The California Chamber of Commerce, the Motion Picture Association, the Computer and Communications Industry Association, TechNet and the California Broadband & Video Association opposed it. The law addresses a gap identified in the legislative analysis. California already regulated artificial uses of a real person’s image, while SB 1050 reaches AI-created human performers who do not correspond to a specific living person. In 2024, the state enacted protections requiring certain contracts to specify uses of AI-generated replicas of performers’ voices or likenesses, and requiring consent from estates before commercial uses of deceased performers’ replicas in specified media. It also forms part of California’s wider AI-transparency push. In 2024, Newsom signed SB 942, which requires widely used generative-AI systems to include provenance disclosures in the content they generate, with those disclosures detectable by free tools offered with the systems. The governor’s office said the state subsequently expanded related transparency requirements to large online platforms. SB 1050 takes effect Jan. 1, 2027, according to Le Monde.