Pennsylvania is requiring labels on advertising that has been significantly modified or generated by artificial intelligence. Governor Josh Shapiro signed the Artificial Intelligence Deceptive Advertising Act into law on Thursday, creating a disclosure requirement that applies to ads in several formats and may affect material created outside the state.
Labels must match the ad’s format
The law covers still images, video, audio and text. An ad that meets the law’s threshold must include a label in the same format as the ad itself. That means the disclosure requirement is not limited to one kind of media or one kind of advertiser.
The rule could reach both large companies’ television commercials and a restaurant flyer promoting wing specials. The size of the advertiser does not appear to be the dividing line described in the article. Instead, the central questions are whether AI significantly modified or generated the ad and whether the synthetic material creates a false consumer perception about a product or service.
That focus connects the label to how an ad might shape a customer’s understanding. The requirement described is not simply about whether AI played any role in making something. The law’s wording, as presented, links disclosure to synthetic content used in a way that creates a false perception. That distinction could matter when interpreting which AI-assisted advertisements fall within the rule.
Ads made elsewhere may still be affected
Pennsylvania is among the first states to require disclosures on AI content, and the law applies regardless of where an ad was created. As a result, an advertiser making material outside Pennsylvania may still need to account for the rule if that ad is expected to air in the state.
This reach could also mean viewers in other states encounter labels on ads that are scheduled to run in Pennsylvania. The source does not describe how advertisers will handle campaigns that appear in multiple places, but a requirement tied to where an ad is expected to air can have effects beyond the state where the ad was produced.
For audiences, a label could indicate that AI significantly changed or generated the advertisement. Yet the rule’s practical meaning depends on how its terms are interpreted: the disclosure does not, by itself, explain what was changed or how much of the ad came from AI.
Key terms leave room for interpretation
The law’s phrase “significantly modified” is subjective, leaving uncertainty about how much AI involvement is enough to trigger a label. The article also notes that the wording appears to require disclosure when synthetic content creates a false consumer perception about a product or service. That raises a further question: what counts as false, and who makes that decision?
There are also exceptions for “parody, satire, commentary or criticism,” as well as content that is “evidently fictional.” The law’s description does not settle what makes something evidently fictional. In practice, the boundaries of these exceptions may determine whether an AI-generated or AI-modified piece needs a label.
These open questions leave advertisers and viewers without a simple test in the account provided. A piece could involve AI, yet whether it qualifies may turn on the degree of modification, the impression it creates and whether an exception applies. The source does not say how those judgments will be made.
Implementation will shape the rule’s reach
The act sets out a disclosure requirement, but the unclear terms make its reach harder to predict. Decisions about what counts as significant modification, false perception or evidently fictional content will matter to the distinction between ads that require a label and those that do not.
The office of State Senator Nick Pisciottano, who introduced the bill, did not immediately return a request for comment. The article provides no further explanation from the bill’s sponsor about how the uncertain language should be understood. For now, the law’s stated scope is broad across ad formats and places of creation, while several of its most important boundaries remain unclear.