The legislation, signed into law Wednesday by Governor Gavin Newsom, represents the latest move by the country’s most populous state and largest state economy to establish rules around the rapidly expanding use of artificial intelligence.
Under the new law, advertisers that use AI-generated performers in video or audio advertisements must clearly inform consumers that the performers are synthetic.
Newsom said the requirement was intended to give consumers greater clarity about the people they see and hear in advertisements.
“Californians deserve to know when the person selling them something isn’t a person at all,” Newsom said after signing the bill into law.
“Here in California, we’re building on our nation-leading AI regulations and putting common sense guardrails in place to protect consumers, performers, and promote stronger transparency.”
The legislation was drafted in part by SAG-AFTRA, the union representing actors and other performers, which has increasingly pushed for protections against the use of AI-generated likenesses and avatars in the entertainment industry.
Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the union’s director and chief negotiator, said the legislation would make it easier for consumers to distinguish between genuine human performers and synthetic representations.
The bill “gives consumers greater transparency by making clear when they are seeing synthetics rather than human performers,” Crabtree-Ireland said.
“This is an important step in the broader effort to protect consumers from deceptive AI practices, and to ensure that AI technology isn’t used at the expense of human creativity and consent.”
Growing concerns over AI in entertainment
The new advertising requirement comes amid a broader debate in Hollywood over how artificial intelligence should be used in the production and marketing of entertainment.
AI has become a major issue for writers and performers, who have raised concerns that studios and other content producers could increasingly rely on artificial intelligence to generate performances, images and other creative material.
During previous labour disputes, writers and performers went on strike in part over concerns surrounding the potential use of AI and its implications for jobs, compensation, consent and control over performers’ likenesses.
The latest California legislation extends that debate beyond film and television production to advertising, where AI-generated personalities can potentially be used to promote products and services without consumers immediately knowing whether they are interacting with an actual human performer.
The disclosure requirement therefore places transparency at the centre of the state’s approach to synthetic performers in commercial content.
California takes a broader regulatory approach
The law also highlights California’s increasingly active role in regulating artificial intelligence and emerging technologies.
While the federal government under President Donald Trump has generally taken a less interventionist approach to AI and technology regulation, California has pursued a growing number of state-level measures addressing the potential effects of artificial intelligence and digital platforms.
The state has positioned itself as a testing ground for new technology regulations, particularly in areas involving consumer protection, privacy and the impact of digital products on vulnerable users.
Earlier this month, California became the first state in the United States to enact legislation restricting social media companies from providing addictive features to users under the age of 16.
The latest measure adds AI-generated advertising to that expanding regulatory framework, requiring companies to be more transparent when artificial intelligence is used to create the appearance or voice of a human performer.
For advertisers, the law creates a new disclosure obligation; for performers and their unions, it represents another attempt to establish boundaries around the use of synthetic likenesses; and for consumers, it provides a means of knowing when an apparent human endorser in an advertisement is not actually human.