ASCI Draws The Line On AI In Ads: Some Things A Label Cannot Fix
ASCI has issued guidelines on labelling AI-generated content in advertising, sorting uses of the technology into three groups: those that must carry a disclosure, those that need none, and those no label can make acceptable. They take effect three months from publication.
- Body: the Advertising Standards Council of India
- In force: three months from publication
- Label format: disclosures such as "Audio/Video created using AI" or "Audio/Video enhanced using AI", following the ASCI Code's disclaimer guidelines
- The test: whether a consumer's understanding would be adversely affected without an AI label
What ASCI Says Must Be Labelled
Anything that changes what the viewer believes they are seeing. The list covers synthetically generated influencers or ambassadors, a real person's likeness or voice replicated with their consent, fabricated events or settings that affect how a product is understood, demonstrations of things the product does not do, AI-generated sound effects tied to a product feature, and AI product suggestions that are paid for, which must carry "Sponsored by [Brand]".
What Needs No Label
Routine craft. Colour correction and blemish removal, decorative or ambient elements, obviously fantastical effects, administrative uses such as generating copy, and accessibility applications all fall outside the disclosure requirement. That distinction matters, because a rule that demanded a label on every AI touch would have put one on nearly every advertisement made from next year onwards.
What A Label Cannot Rescue
The most consequential part of the guidance. Fabricated endorsements or testimonials, synthetic representations that exaggerate what a product does, locations misrepresented as real, unauthorised use of copyrighted work, and deepfakes or unauthorised use of a person's likeness are prohibited outright. Disclosing them does not make them permissible.
Manisha Kapoor, secretary general and chief executive of ASCI, said the guidelines provide practical transparency requirements for when a consumer's understanding may be adversely affected without an AI label.
What Advertisers Should Do Now
Audit the pipeline, not the output. The guidance turns on what a technique does to consumer understanding, which means the compliance question lands at the brief and the edit rather than at the final file. Three months is not long for agencies and brands to work out which of their existing production habits now need a line of type on screen, and which need to stop.
ASCI publishes its codes and guidelines at ascionline.in. More news.