Earlier this month, Google announced that it is adding additional transparency features across its advertising products in order “to help people easily understand when generative AI was used to create or alter an ad.”  Here are the key updates.

First, if an advertiser designates an advertisement as AI-generated or edited, a disclosure will appear in the “How this ad was made” section in the My Ad Center panel.  Users can access this panel by clicking on the three-dot menu on ads across Google's Search, YouTube, and Discover products.  

Second, in certain jurisdictions, including the European Union, India, and New York, advertisements that are designated as AI created or edited will also automatically include visible overlays on the ads themselves that indicate that the ads were AI-generated. 

Google's ad policies don't require that all AI-generated or edited ads be labeled.  Rather, they track the rules in the countries that require those disclosures.  For political advertising, however, Google requires that advertisers disclose when they contain “synthetic or digitally altered content that is consequential to the claims bein made in the ad.”