New York’s Synthetic Performer Law and What It Means for Your AI Video Ads
New York’s synthetic performer disclosure law took effect June 9, 2026. If your business runs AI-generated video ads and you have not looked at this, look now.
WHAT COUNTS AS A SYNTHETIC PERFORMER
A synthetic performer is a digitally created asset, made with generative AI or other software, built to look like a human performer who is not an identifiable real person. That covers an AI spokesperson, an AI-generated customer testimonial, an AI voice reading a script over an AI face. It also covers non-AI visual effects work built to the same end. The tool does not matter. The intent to create a fake human on screen does.
WHO HAS TO DISCLOSE
Anyone in the business of dealing in property or services who produces or creates the ad, and who has actual knowledge a synthetic performer is in it. If you commissioned the ad and knew an AI performer was used, this is on you, not just your video vendor.
WHAT THE DISCLOSURE HAS TO LOOK LIKE
The law requires a conspicuous disclosure that a synthetic performer appears in the ad. It does not spell out a required size, placement, or exact wording. Conspicuous means a viewer has to be able to see it and understand it without hunting. Buried in a description field is not conspicuous. On screen, readable, held long enough to read, is the safer read of the law until there is case law to say otherwise.
WHO IS EXEMPT
Publishers and platforms that just run the ad, not produce it. Expressive works like film, TV, and games, where the synthetic performer is part of the creative work itself, not a fake customer or fake spokesperson. Audio-only ads. Straight language translation of a real performer’s real performance.
PENALTIES
$1,000 for a first violation. $5,000 for each one after that. Per ad, not per year, so this adds up fast if you are running the same ad across paid placements.
WHERE THIS OVERLAPS WITH THE FTC
New York’s law is not the only rule in play. The FTC’s Endorsement Guides and Section 5 of the FTC Act already require that any endorsement reflect an honest opinion and that material connections get disclosed clearly and conspicuously. An AI-generated “customer” saying they love your product is not an honest opinion from a real customer. That is a separate problem from the New York law, and it does not go away just because New York’s rule has an exemption that might technically apply.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR A HYBRID AI VIDEO
Most of what I build for clients is hybrid: real footage of a real business, real product, sometimes a real employee on camera, with AI-generated b-roll, AI voice, or AI-assisted effects layered in. A hybrid video with real people talking about their own product is a different situation than an AI-generated spokesperson pretending to be a customer. Know which one you are making before you post it.
WHAT I DO ON MY END
Any project where an AI-generated human appears in a way a viewer could mistake for a real person gets a disclosure built into the delivered file, not left for the client to add later. If you are working with a different vendor, ask them the same thing before the ad goes live, not after.
This is not legal advice. Talk to a lawyer about your specific ad and your specific state before you rely on any of this.
Questions about whether your next video needs this, or want to talk through an AI video project the right way from the start? Contact me or see the AI Video Marketing page.
Patrick Reilly
