Google is rolling out a feature that tells you when an ad was made using AI. The label will indicate whether an ad was created or edited with generative tools, TechCrunch reports.
The disclosure appears in the “My Ad Center” dashboard, which can be accessed through the three-dot menu or the information icon in ads. It covers ads on Google Search, YouTube, and Google Discover, and is available globally.
That panel already allows users to block or report ads and know why one was shown. Now add an option called “how this ad was made,” which shows any AI involvement.
The reasoning is simple. AI makes it cheaper to generate slick product images, which can fool shoppers into assuming they’re looking at a real photo rather than a synthetic one.
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Until now, Google only required disclosure of AI in election ads. Expanding it to commercial ads is a significant expansion of the policy.
The Honor System Trap
The scope of the feature depends largely on how the ad was created. When advertisers use Google’s own generative AI advertising tools, disclosure is automatically enabled.
However, when an advertisement is made elsewhere, the advertiser must actively point out that AI was involved. Google says it won’t do its own verification to verify the claim, so the label depends on advertisers being honest.
That gap is important because the incentive to remain silent is real. An advertiser who expects a synthetic scene to pass for a genuine photo has little reason to volunteer otherwise, and Google isn’t looking over its shoulder.
Regulators are forcing the issue
The moment is not coincidental. Google’s move comes ahead of stricter rules as the EU AI Law’s transparency obligations for AI-generated content begin to take effect in August.
The industry is already resisting the mandatory version, with Retailers push to exempt AI-created ads of those EU rules. A voluntary, self-proclaimed label is a much lighter touch than what Brussels has in mind, and is part of a Broader fight over AI Law.
Google is also not consistent in its own products. On YouTube it will Automatically tag videos with AI, whether the creators reveal them or not.a stricter stance than the advertiser honesty relied upon here.
Transparency, to a certain extent.
The feature remains a step towards a market drowning in synthetic media, where even Google has classified some AI content as spam. Giving users a place to ask how an ad was created is better than silence.
Whether behavior changes is another question, in an ecosystem where Misleading advertising is already a lucrative problem.. A label only helps if the people who have the most to hide decide to apply it.
For now, Google has put together the disclosure and delivered the change to advertisers. The honest ones will turn it around, and the rest are exactly the reason such a label was needed.
