A video or audio advertisement shown in California that uses a computer-generated person to sell something will soon have to say so. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 1050 into law on September 16, 2026, at the headquarters of SAG-AFTRA, the actors' union that sponsored it. The measure is deliberately narrow, and it takes effect January 1, 2027. The advertising industry calls it an overbroad labeling regime, and the part that forces publishers to pull illegal ads may collide with a federal law that has shielded them for decades.
What an ad has to say
The law applies to video and audio advertisements that prominently include what the statute calls a synthetic performer: a digital figure, voice or representation made in whole or in part with generative AI that creates the realistic impression of a human performer who is not recognizable as any identifiable real person. In ordinary terms, it targets invented people. A digital version of a specific, recognizable actor is not a synthetic performer under this definition.
Not every synthetic appearance triggers the duty. The law requires disclosure only when the figure is prominent, and it defines that in three specific situations: the synthetic performer is in the foreground demonstrating or illustrating the product or service, is providing or voicing the on- or off-camera narration or commercial message, or is illustrating or reacting to that message. When a label is required, it must be clear and conspicuous, and the statute offers two examples of acceptable wording: that the performance features a synthetic performer, or that no human performer is depicted.
What the law leaves alone
Two exemptions do much of the work of narrowing the rule. Advertisements for expressive works, which the text lists as motion pictures, television programs, streaming content, documentaries and video games, are exempt as long as the synthetic performer is used in the ad the same way it is used in the work being advertised. A trailer built around an AI character can run without a label; that same character selling a soft drink cannot.
The second exemption covers AI used solely to translate a human performer into another language or to provide accessibility features. Dubbing a real actor, or adding features that make an ad usable for viewers with disabilities, does not require disclosure.
Why California did it
SAG-AFTRA sponsored the bill and, by its own account, helped craft its language. Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the union's national executive director and chief negotiator, said in the governor's announcement that the law "gives consumers greater transparency by making clear when they are seeing synthetics rather than human performers," and that it is "an important step in the broader effort to protect consumers from deceptive AI practices." Newsom said in his signing statement that "Californians deserve to know when the person selling them something isn't a person at all."
The Legislature wrote in the bill's findings that the required label is a purely factual commercial disclosure, consistent with constitutional protections for commercial speech, and that it is necessary to prevent deceptive or misleading advertising. That framing is the state's answer to the argument that the law compels speech advertisers would rather not make.
The industry's objection
Four advertising trade groups, the Association of National Advertisers, the American Association of Advertising Agencies, the American Advertising Federation and the Digital Advertising Alliance, urged a veto in a September 4 letter. They argued that the bill, rather than targeting deceptive conduct, would establish what they called an overbroad mandatory labeling regime, exposing businesses to opportunistic litigation and placing severe burdens on ordinary commercial speech. The same letter warned that folding routine creative work into the rule would dilute consumer awareness and create disclosure overload, which the groups said undermines transparency rather than serving it.
Why enforcement is the hard part
The law makes it unlawful for a person to create and cause to be published an advertisement that prominently includes a synthetic performer without the required disclosure, and enforcement arrives through the courts. The provision that worries media lawyers reaches past the advertiser to the outlet: once a court finds an ad violates the law and the advertising medium is served with the order, the medium must remove or disable access to it and stop accepting payment for further dissemination.
Eric Goldman, a Santa Clara University law professor, told MediaPost that the takedown requirement looks like a problem. "As a practical matter, I don't know what publishers would do if they received one of these court orders," Goldman said. "But in the abstract, not knowing the situation of any individual publisher, it looks like a 230 violation." Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is the 1996 federal law that generally shields online platforms from liability for content their users provide, and Goldman's reading is that ordering a platform to remove a specific advertisement runs against that protection. That is his assessment, not a court ruling.
A wider push
Advertising is one front in a broader push to label AI, and California is not the only place trying it. The Verge reported that Newsom issued an executive order directing state experts to recommend new safeguards for advanced AI models, including a way to shut down a model that has lost control, with recommendations due within two months. In New York, Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani said the city is working on rules that would require apartment listings to disclose when photos or videos were generated by AI, arguing that New Yorkers should know whether the apartment they are looking at is real. California's advertising rule is narrower and more concrete than either effort: it regulates what a viewer is told about a specific ad.
What happens next
The disclosure requirement takes effect January 1, 2027. An ad does not have to come off the air or off a website until a court finds that a specific advertisement violated the law and the outlet running it is served with the order. Whether the requirement changes what advertisers actually do, and whether the takedown duty survives a federal challenge, will be settled after that date in court.