New York's Synthetic Performer Law: If There Is an AI Person in Your Ad, You Have to Say So
Since 9 June 2026, ads reaching New York consumers that feature an AI-generated person must disclose it conspicuously. The definition contains a pincer most coverage has missed.
This article is general information about advertising disclosure rules. It is not legal advice. Obligations differ by jurisdiction, depend on your specific circumstances, and change. Check your own position with a qualified adviser before acting on anything here.
Since 9 June 2026, any advertisement reaching New York consumers that features an AI-generated person has had to say so, conspicuously, on the face of the advertisement.
The law is short, it is already in force, and a striking number of brands running AI creative have never heard of it. It carries civil penalties of $1,000 for a first violation and $5,000 for every one after that, and unlike most of the AI legislation currently being discussed, there is no implementation runway left. The runway ended in June.
It also contains a structural feature that almost no coverage has picked up, which turns out to matter a great deal if you are deciding what kind of creative to commission. More on that below, because it is the part worth reading if you read nothing else.
From r/advertising:
"The purely generated 'UGC' being made is so unethical, it almost surprises me and any professional marketer or advertiser would get on board. I hope other markets follow suit."
Two things in that are worth separating, because the law only does one of them.
The statute takes no view on ethics. It does not say generated people are wrong, and it does not ban them. It says that if one appears in your advertising and you know it, you disclose. That is a labelling rule, not a moral one, and reading it as a prohibition is the most common mistake being made about it.
But the phrase he reaches for, purely generated, lands almost exactly on the statutory test. New York's definition turns on whether the figure is recognisable as an identifiable real person. A wholly invented one is not, which is precisely what makes it a synthetic performer. An advertiser's instinct about where the line sits and the drafters' language have converged on the same place, which is unusual and probably a good sign about the drafting.
His last sentence is also the practical point for anyone reading this outside New York. Other markets are following suit, and the disclosure requirement now arrives from several directions at once: state advertising law, the EU AI Act, and the platforms' own labelling systems.
What the Law Actually Says
The statute is New York Senate Bill S8420A, sponsored by Senator Michael Gianaris, which amends section 396-b of the New York General Business Law. It passed the Senate 59 to nil, was signed on 11 December 2025 as chapter 617, and took effect 180 days later.
The operative provision is subdivision 3, and in ordinary English it says this: a business that produces or creates an advertisement for its own products or services must conspicuously disclose in that advertisement that a synthetic performer appears in it, where that business has actual knowledge.
The definition of a synthetic performer, in subdivision 1(c), is the part that repays attention. A synthetic performer is a digitally created item, created, reproduced or modified by computer using generative AI or a software algorithm, intended to create the impression that it is engaging in an audiovisual or visual performance of a human performer, who is not recognisable as any identifiable natural performer.
Read that final clause twice. It is the hinge of the whole thing.
The Pincer Nobody Mentions
The obvious question on reading that definition is whether it contains a loophole. If the law only covers AI people who are not recognisable as real people, what about AI creative built to resemble somebody real?
It is not a loophole. It is the other jaw of a pincer, and the drafters closed it deliberately.
Subdivision 5 states that nothing in the section limits, reduces or enlarges any rights a person has under sections 50, 50-f or 51 of the New York Civil Rights Law. Those are the right of privacy, the right of publicity for deceased performers, and the right to sue for injunction and damages.
So the two cases divide cleanly:
An invented person who resembles nobody in particular is a synthetic performer. Disclosure is required. Failure is a civil penalty.
A generated person recognisable as a real individual falls outside the synthetic performer definition, and lands instead in right of privacy and right of publicity territory, where the remedy is not a $1,000 penalty but a claim brought by the person whose likeness you used.
There is no configuration of AI-generated human imagery in an advertisement that escapes both. You are choosing which regime applies, not whether one does.
And there is a third case, which is the reason this article exists: a real, identifiable person who agreed to appear. Not a synthetic performer, because nothing was generated. No publicity claim, because there is consent. Neither jaw closes, because there is nothing to close on.
Which Regime Applies to Your Creative
Four questions decide it. Work down from the top.
The shape of that diagram is the argument. There are two routes to an obligation and one route out of it, and the route out is the only one that does not depend on how carefully you word a disclosure or how well you document what your agency did.
Who It Reaches, and What "Conspicuous" Means
Two practical questions follow, and the second has an uncomfortable answer.
Reach. Legal commentary on the statute reads it as applying to any company whose advertising reaches consumers in New York, regardless of where that company is headquartered. Section 396-b concerns advertisements placed before the public in the state. For a UK or European brand running paid social to a US audience, geographic exclusion of a single state is not a realistic campaign setting, so the working assumption should be that you are in scope.
Conspicuousness. The statute requires disclosure to be conspicuous and then declines to define the term. It prescribes no wording, no placement, no minimum size, no duration for video, and no format-specific standards.
That is a genuine gap, and it is the practical risk in the law. You can intend to comply and still be judged not to have.
The consensus workaround among advertising lawyers is to borrow the Federal Trade Commission's long-established "clear and conspicuous" standard as a benchmark, since it is well developed and regulators are familiar with it. In substance that means a disclosure placed close to the relevant claim, prominent enough in size, contrast and duration to be noticed and understood, and not buried in small print, hidden behind a hyperlink or left to a hover state.
A line of grey six-point text under a video does not meet that standard on any reading.
The Exemptions, and What They Tell You
The statute carves out four categories, and the shape of the carve-outs is informative.
Expressive works. Advertising and promotional material for films, television programmes, streaming content, documentaries and video games is exempt, provided the synthetic performer's use in the advertisement is consistent with its use in the underlying work. A trailer for a film containing a digital character does not need a disclosure for the character it is actually about.
Audio-only advertising. Excluded outright.
Language translation. Where AI is used solely to translate the language of a real human performer, no disclosure is required. Dubbing your own founder into Spanish does not make the founder synthetic.
The medium. The obligation does not reach the newspapers, magazines, television networks and stations, streaming services, cable systems, billboard operators and transit advertising companies that carry the advertisement. Notably, the earlier draft of the bill contained a provision making media liable if given written notice and five days to act. That provision was removed in the amended version that became law. Liability sits with the advertiser, full stop.
The common thread across all four: the legislature was aiming at commercial persuasion by fabricated humans, not at AI in production workflows generally. Retouching, colour correction and using AI tools to enhance footage of real people are not what this is about.
What the Audience Thinks, Which Is the Larger Cost
The penalties here are modest. A first violation at $1,000 will not reshape anyone's media plan, and the honest read is that this law's near-term effect is disclosure behaviour rather than enforcement revenue.
The disclosure itself is the expensive part.
Research from Klaviyo and Datalily found that only 7% of consumers say visible AI-generated marketing content makes them trust a brand more, while 31% say it makes them trust the brand less. In the same body of work, 78% said they would rather see ads made by people even if AI could produce better ones.
Consider what that means operationally. You commission AI creative to save on production. The law requires you to label it. The label is read by an audience of whom roughly a third trust you less for having used it. You have converted a production saving into a trust cost, and the trust cost is applied at the point of consideration, where it does the most damage.
That is not an argument that AI creative never pays. It is an argument that the arithmetic has more terms in it than it did eighteen months ago, and the new terms are all on the same side.
The Creative That Sits Outside All of It
Every regime discussed here, New York's statute, the EU AI Act, the platform labelling systems, is built around one question: is there a human being in this advertisement who does not exist?
There is a category of creative for which the answer is permanently and obviously no, and most brands already have the raw material for it sitting in their customer base.
82DASH exists to turn that from an accident into a supply. It is a customer content library: photos, videos, feedback and reviews collected directly from real customers, with rights cleared at the point of submission.
The flow is deliberately simple. A customer scans a QR code or taps an NFC tag, on packaging, on a receipt, at a counter or in a follow-up message. They submit a photo or a short video. A reward lands on their phone in an Apple Wallet or Google Wallet pass within seconds. The rights agreement is captured at the moment of submission, which is the step that makes the content usable in paid advertising rather than only on your own channels.
For the specific problem in this article, three things follow.
No disclosure obligation arises. A real customer is not a synthetic performer under any definition. There is nothing to declare.
No publicity exposure arises. The person appearing consented, in a recorded agreement, at the point they submitted. That is precisely the exposure the other jaw of the pincer creates for generated likenesses, and consent is the answer to it.
The content performs better anyway. Nosto, formerly Stackla, finds customers 2.4 times more likely to engage with customer content than brand-made content. Bazaarvoice puts conversion uplift above 160% when shoppers interact with customer photos. Nielsen has repeatedly found around 92% of consumers trust earned media above all advertising formats.
It is worth naming the terminology, because the distinction is doing real work. CGC, customer-generated content, is submitted directly to you, structured and rights-cleared. UGC in the older sense is publicly posted, uncontrolled and rights-uncertain. Only one of those can be put behind ad spend without a lawyer's involvement, and only one can be planned as a supply. Our glossary covers the terms in full.
Underneath sits the reallocation the whole category is built on: pay your customers, not creators. A brand hiring a creator, or generating a synthetic one, is paying for someone with no relationship to the product to appear convincing. The customers who already chose it will supply a photograph for the price of a small reward, and their version carries more weight for the simple reason that nobody paid them to hold the opinion.
The reward matters more than most brands expect, and it does not need to be large. Immediacy does more work than value. Our guide to rewarding customers for photos, videos and feedback covers what tends to work.
Install 82DASH on the Shopify App Store
A Short Compliance Checklist
Audit what is running now. Identify every live creative containing a human figure and establish, for each, whether that person exists. Most brands cannot currently answer this, and the answer takes an afternoon to establish.
Ask your agency in writing. The obligation turns on actual knowledge. Asking the question and recording the answer is both good practice and, if it ever matters, evidence.
Write a disclosure you would be willing to defend. Use the FTC clear and conspicuous framework: close to the claim, prominent, legible, present long enough to be read. Decide this once, apply it consistently.
Keep production records. Tool used, vendor confirmations, internal sign-off. Several of these regimes turn on what you knew and when.
Check whether AI creative is still earning its place. Once labelling, platform detection and a measurable trust penalty are all in the calculation, some of it will not be. Some of it still will.
Start collecting customer content now rather than in November. Collection has a lead time of weeks, not days. The brands who find Q4 comfortable are the ones who began asking in September.
Isabelle Simon, Communications Lead, 82DASH
Frequently Asked Questions
What counts as a synthetic performer under New York law?
A digitally created item, made or modified by computer using generative AI or a software algorithm, intended to give the impression it is a human performer in a visual or audiovisual performance, who is not recognisable as any identifiable real person. In practice: an AI-generated person in your advertisement who does not exist. Minor editing of real footage, such as retouching or colour correction, does not fall within it.
Does it apply to my business if I am not in New York?
Legal commentary on the statute reads it as applying to any advertiser whose ads reach New York consumers, regardless of where the business is based. Given that excluding a single US state from paid social targeting is not practical, most brands advertising to a US audience should assume they are in scope.
What if the AI person looks like a real celebrity?
Then it is probably not a synthetic performer under this definition, because the definition requires the figure to be unrecognisable as an identifiable person. That does not help you. Subdivision 5 expressly preserves rights under sections 50, 50-f and 51 of the New York Civil Rights Law, so the exposure moves from a civil penalty to a right of privacy or publicity claim brought by the individual.
How prominent does the disclosure have to be?
The statute requires it to be conspicuous and does not define the term, prescribe wording, or set placement or format standards. The widely recommended approach is to apply the FTC's "clear and conspicuous" framework: proximate to the claim, sufficiently prominent in size, contrast and duration, and not buried in fine print or behind a link.
Do customer photos and videos need a disclosure?
No. A real customer is not a synthetic performer, so the statute does not apply. Where the content was submitted with a rights agreement captured at the point of submission, the consent question that governs use of a real person's likeness is also answered. Neither half of the pincer applies.
