SB 1050 is a California law authored by state Senator Angelique Ashby (D-Sacramento) that makes it an unlawful advertising practice to publish an advertisement that prominently includes an AI-generated "synthetic performer" without a clear and conspicuous disclosure. Governor Gavin Newsom signed it on September 16, 2026, with Ashby, at the Los Angeles headquarters of the bill's sponsor, the performers' union SAG-AFTRA (Source: gov.ca.gov). It was chaptered the same day as Chapter 246 of the Statutes of 2026 and adds Article 10 (Section 17610) to the false-advertising chapter of the Business and Professions Code (Source: leginfo.legislature.ca.gov).
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Author | Sen. Angelique Ashby (D-Sacramento) |
| Sponsor | SAG-AFTRA |
| Signed | September 16, 2026 (approved by the Governor and filed with the Secretary of State) |
| Chapter | Chapter 246, Statutes of 2026 |
| Codified at | Business and Professions Code § 17610 |
| Enforcement | As a violation of § 17500 (false advertising), through the Unfair Competition Law (§ 17200 et seq.) |
Status and timeline
SB 1050 was introduced on February 12, 2026, amended in the Senate on April 23, 2026, and amended in the Assembly on June 11, August 13 and August 19, 2026. It was enrolled on September 4 and chaptered on September 16, 2026 (Source: leginfo.legislature.ca.gov).
Scope and definitions
The law defines a synthetic performer as "a digital figure, voice, or representation created in whole or in part using generative artificial intelligence that creates the realistic impression of the audio, audiovisual, or visual performance of a human performer who is not recognizable as any identifiable natural person." It therefore reaches AI-generated performers who do not depict a real person, a category distinct from the digital replicas of identifiable individuals addressed by likeness statutes such as the federal NO FAKES Act proposal (Source: leginfo.legislature.ca.gov).
An advertisement is any audio, video or audiovisual message or other representation, including through online platforms, intended or reasonably expected to induce the purchase of goods or services. An advertising medium includes broadcast stations, cable operators, multichannel video programming distributors, online platforms, streaming services, digital advertising networks and publishers that make an audio or audiovisual advertisement available to consumers in California, but excludes an entity that cannot remove, disable access to or stop disseminating an advertisement. A synthetic performer is included prominently when it is in the foreground demonstrating or illustrating the product or service, provides or voices the on- or off-camera narration or commercial message, or illustrates or reacts to that narration or message (Source: leginfo.legislature.ca.gov).
Key provisions
The disclosure must be "difficult to miss, easily understandable," and noticeable to a reasonable consumer given the medium, format and context, and must use wording substantially similar to "this performance features a synthetic performer" or "no human performer is depicted." The Legislature's findings describe the disclosure as a purely factual commercial disclosure intended to be consistent with constitutional protections for commercial speech (Source: leginfo.legislature.ca.gov).
The governor's office summarized the law as prohibiting "the continued use of any advertisement found to be in violation" (Source: gov.ca.gov). In the enacted text, that duty falls on the advertising medium and is triggered by a court order: an advertising medium may not carry an advertisement containing a synthetic performer once a court has found that the advertisement violates the section or has enjoined its creator from publishing it, and the medium has been served with the order and information sufficient to identify the advertisement. On receipt it must, as soon as commercially reasonable and technically feasible, remove or stop disseminating the advertisement in California and stop accepting payment for further dissemination (Source: leginfo.legislature.ca.gov).
The section does not restrict the creation or distribution of synthetic content, does not regulate an advertisement's expressive content beyond the required disclosure, and does not apply to advertisements for expressive works such as films, television programs, streaming content, documentaries and video games where the synthetic performer's use in the advertisement is consistent with its use in the work, or to advertisements in which generative AI is used solely for language translation of a human performer or other accessibility features (Source: leginfo.legislature.ca.gov).
Enforcement and penalties
A violation constitutes a violation of Business and Professions Code § 17500 and may be enforced under the Unfair Competition Law. Because § 17500 violations are misdemeanors, the Legislative Counsel's Digest notes that the bill expands the scope of a crime (Source: leginfo.legislature.ca.gov).
Reactions
Newsom said on signing that "Californians deserve to know when the person selling them something isn't a person at all." Ashby said the law requires "that synthetic figures be labeled as such, thus protecting consumers from false advertising and disallowing AI to replace real people." Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA's national executive director and chief negotiator, said the union "was proud to help craft the language of the bill" and described it as "an important step in the broader effort to protect consumers from deceptive AI practices" (Source: gov.ca.gov).
The governor's office presented SB 1050 as building on California's earlier protections for performers' digital likenesses and on the California AI Transparency Act (SB 942), and grouped it with the September 2026 signings of SB 813 and AB 1405 on independent assessment and third-party audits of AI systems (Source: gov.ca.gov).
Relationships
- instance-of: State-Level AI Regulation — a California entry in the state AI-legislation landscape.
- related: Synthetic Media / Deepfakes — disclosure of AI-generated content in advertising.
- related: California AI Transparency Act (SB 942) — California's AI content-provenance and disclosure statute, which the governor's office described SB 1050 as extending.
- related: NO FAKES Act (federal, proposed) — federal proposal on digital replicas of identifiable individuals, also supported by SAG-AFTRA; SB 1050 covers performers not recognizable as any identifiable person.
- related: AI Labeling Act of 2026 — federal AI-content labeling proposal endorsed by SAG-AFTRA.
- related: Gavin Newsom — signed the bill on September 16, 2026.