The AI Advertising Disclosure Act is a bill in the 119th Congress requiring operators of consumer-facing AI chatbots and generative search features to disclose when a response is shaped by a commercial arrangement. It was introduced in the House of Representatives on August 24, 2026 by Representative Seth Magaziner (D-R.I.), with Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton as an original cosponsor, and referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce (H.R. 10146 — AI Advertising Disclosure Act (bill text)).
Status
| Date | Action |
|---|---|
| 2026-08-24 | Introduced in House by Rep. Magaziner (for himself and Ms. Norton) |
| 2026-08-24 | Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce |
The bill is at the introduced stage; no committee action had been recorded as of August 29, 2026. Its operative section would take effect 12 months after enactment.
Scope and definitions
The bill regulates a covered entity — any person, company, or organization that deploys or operates a covered tool for consumer-facing use with more than 50,000 monthly active users. A covered tool is an AI interactive computer service or software application that generates responses that are not fully predetermined and accepts open-ended natural-language or multimodal input, producing adaptive or context-responsive output. The definition expressly includes both AI chatbots and generative search synthesis features.
That second term is defined to reach any feature of a search engine or information-retrieval service that uses a large language model or similar technology to produce a synthesized narrative answer, summary, or recommendation displayed in place of, or more prominently than, the ranked list of hyperlinks the service would otherwise return — and it applies whether or not the user asked for a summary and whether or not source citations accompany the output.
A commercial arrangement is defined as an exchange of money, data, preferential access, or other consideration that influences the content of an AI-generated response. Sponsored content is an AI-generated response that mentions, recommends, or promotes a specific product, service, or entity and is produced in whole or in part because of such an arrangement. "AI" takes the definition in section 5002 of the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act of 2020 (15 U.S.C. 9401).
Key provisions
Disclosure triggers
A covered entity must disclose when a covered tool's response:
- mentions, recommends, presents, or favorably mentions a product, service, or entity pursuant to a commercial arrangement, "regardless of whether the user explicitly requested a product recommendation";
- is general in nature but influenced by a commercial arrangement, "including through a brand-specific mention, ranking, or omission embedded within advice, how-to, or informational response not framed as product queries";
- is generated using a system prompt, retrieval-augmented generation source, or fine-tuning data provided or funded by a third party under a commercial arrangement; or
- contains an affiliate link or referral code, whether embedded or appended.
The third trigger reaches the retrieval and fine-tuning layers rather than only the surface text of a response, and the second reaches omissions as well as mentions.
Form of disclosure
Disclosures must be clear and conspicuous, visible without scrolling, in plain language, and provided with or before the relevant content; must identify the specific nature of the relationship, such as paid promotion, sponsorship, or affiliate partnership; must be retained if the conversation is saved, exported, or shared; and may not be obscured by design, color, font size, or placement. For voice-based tools, the disclosure may not be delivered with any audio effect that reduces salience, such as lower volume or a pitch shift.
Prohibited practices
A covered entity may not allow a covered tool to be instructed to deny being AI or to deny being in a commercial relationship when directly asked; to use design patterns that obscure or minimize required disclosures; or to present sponsored content as the product of organic AI reasoning when it is not.
Operator obligations
Covered entities must maintain an internal registry of each third-party commercial arrangement that influences AI-generated content, updated in real time, and must give users the ability to ask within a session whether any response they received was subject to a commercial arrangement.
Enforcement
Enforcement runs on four tracks:
- FTC rulemaking. Within 180 days of enactment and every three years thereafter, "to account for changes in AI technology," the Federal Trade Commission must issue regulations under 5 U.S.C. § 553 as it determines necessary.
- FTC enforcement. A violation is treated as a violation of a rule under section 18(a)(1)(B) of the FTC Act (15 U.S.C. 57a(a)(1)(B)) regarding unfair or deceptive acts or practices, with the Commission's ordinary powers and penalties.
- State attorneys general. A state may sue as parens patriae in state or federal court for injunctive relief, compliance, damages or restitution on behalf of residents, and other relief, on written notice to the FTC. The FTC may intervene, and states may not file while a parallel federal action against the same defendant is pending.
- Private right of action. An injured person may sue for injunctive relief and for actual monetary loss or up to $1,000 per violation, whichever is greater, trebled at the court's discretion for willful or knowing violations, with costs and reasonable attorney's fees to a prevailing plaintiff and a two-year limitations period running from discovery.
Relation to other law
The bill states that it does not limit the authority of the FTC, the Federal Communications Commission, or state consumer-protection agencies, and that it does not preempt a state law providing greater consumer protection related to a covered tool. That express anti-preemption floor runs opposite to the federal preemption efforts described in Techno-Federalism and State-Level AI Regulation.
Relationships
- instance-of: AI Transparency — disclosure as the regulatory instrument
- regulated-by: Federal Trade Commission (FTC) — designated enforcement agency and rulemaking authority
- related: State-Level AI Regulation — the bill's non-preemption clause preserves stronger state law
- related: Techno-Federalism
- depends-on: H.R. 10146 — AI Advertising Disclosure Act (bill text) — the Introduced-in-House bill text this page summarizes
- related: Open-Source AI Leadership Act (H.R. 10152, 119th Congress) — introduced in the same week and referred to the same committee