The AI Label That Changed The Advert

I was watching television when something unexpected caught my attention. It wasn’t the product being advertised or even the advert itself, but a small AI label sitting quietly in the corner of the screen.

The advert was for Smyths Toys, and the badge indicated that artificial intelligence had been used in creating or modifying the content. It was subtle enough that many viewers probably wouldn’t have noticed it, but once I had, I found myself thinking less about the advert and more about the decision to include the label in the first place.

What made it particularly interesting was the timing. Only days earlier, new transparency obligations under the EU AI Act had come into effect, placing greater emphasis on informing people when AI has been used in certain types of content. Whether the label appeared because of those requirements, evolving industry practice or simply a commitment to greater transparency, it felt like a glimpse of how AI may increasingly appear in everyday advertising.

There has been plenty of debate about whether we should be able to identify AI-generated content;

• Can you tell when AI has been used?
• Should organisations disclose it?
• Does it matter if they don’t?

A visible label approaches the problem differently because, rather than leaving viewers to work out for themselves whether AI might have been involved, it simply gives them that information from the outset. In one sense, nothing about the advert has changed; the product is the same, the message is the same and, had the label not been there, many viewers may never have questioned how it was created. Yet knowing that AI played a role introduces a piece of information that wasn’t there before, and that alone can change the way the advert is perceived.

For some people, the label may be a welcome sign of transparency, while for others it could immediately raise questions about authenticity, originality or even the quality of what they’re watching. That’s what makes such a small addition so interesting, because the content itself hasn’t become any more or less authentic simply because those two letters have appeared on the screen, but the viewer now has additional context through which to judge it.

Brands have previously faced criticism for using AI without disclosing it, which makes greater transparency seem like a fairly straightforward response, but disclosure creates an interesting dynamic of its own. Once we’re explicitly told that AI has been involved, we may start looking at the content differently, questioning elements we wouldn’t otherwise have noticed or wondering how much of what we’re seeing was created by a person and how much came from the technology.

AI labels may not become standard across every advert, and consumers may not always care whether AI has played a role, but as generative AI becomes more routinely used to create advertising, images and video, we’re likely to encounter more attempts to make that involvement visible. If that happens, the interesting question won’t simply be whether people notice the labels, but whether the information they provide changes the way we respond to the content itself.

That’s certainly what happened to me, because although I only noticed the label for a moment, it ultimately became the part of the advert I remembered most. I can’t remember much about the product being promoted or exactly what happened in the advert, but I do remember those two little letters sitting in the corner of the screen and the question they left behind: does knowing AI was involved change how we feel about what we’re watching?