Google is rolling out a new way to see when the ads you encounter were made using artificial intelligence.
According to TechCrunch (reported by Sarah Perez), Google says it will automatically add a disclosure to ads created with its AI advertising tools. Crucially, this expands the disclosure beyond election ads to cover all ads.
The Verge, citing TechCrunch, reports that the update was announced on Thursday. It adds a "created or edited with AI" label under the "how this ad was made" tab within Google's "My Ad Center." The Verge notes the labeling applies to ads on Google Search, Google Discover, and YouTube.
As Engadget frames it, if Google's AI tools are used to build an ad, that fact will automatically be noted in My Ad Center — meaning advertisers won't have to flag it themselves.
Why does this matter? As generative AI makes it faster and cheaper to produce polished, realistic advertising, it becomes harder for ordinary people to tell what was crafted by a human and what was machine-generated. By attaching an automatic label and placing it somewhere users can check, Google is offering a small but concrete signal of transparency at a moment when AI-made imagery and copy are spreading across the platforms billions of people use every day.