Google Ads Now Get Labels to Show When AI Was Used

If you’ve ever clicked on an ad and wondered whether that perfect product photo was real or generated by a computer, Google is rolling out a new feature that might help. Starting this week, the company is adding a section called “How this ad was made” to its My Ad Center panel, letting you check whether an ad was created or altered using generative AI. You can find it by clicking the three-dot menu or the info icon on ads across Google Search, YouTube, and Discover.

The move comes as advertisers lean more heavily on AI tools to speed up production and cut costs, often creating images or copy that would have been too expensive or complex before. But that convenience comes with a catch: if an ad shows a product in a scene that doesn’t exist, it can leave shoppers confused or even misled. Google says that when advertisers use its own generative AI tools, a disclosure will automatically appear in the My Ad Center panel. For ads made on other platforms, advertisers can voluntarily flag whether AI was involved, and that label will show up on the ad itself.

There’s a catch, though. Google won’t actively verify those voluntary labels—it’s up to the advertiser to be honest. If local laws require an AI label, the ad will be marked accordingly. A Google spokesperson told CNET that advertisers are responsible for accurate labeling and complying with regulations. This is the latest transparency push from Google, following May’s launch of SynthID, an invisible watermarking system that tags AI-generated content across its Gemini assistant.