H.R. 10146 is a bill of the 119th Congress introduced in the House of Representatives on August 24, 2026 by Representative Seth Magaziner (D-RI-2) "for himself and Ms. Norton," and referred the same day to the Committee on Energy and Commerce. Its long title is "To require a covered tool to disclose when the covered tool provides sponsored content, and for other purposes." This page summarizes the Introduced-in-House text, the only version available (Source: congress.gov). The topic page is AI Advertising Disclosure Act (H.R. 10146, 119th Congress).
The bill is drafted as a single operative section. Section 1 supplies the short title; section 2 carries the disclosure duties, prohibitions, operator obligations, four enforcement tracks, definitions, a savings clause, and the effective date.
Who is covered
A covered entity is "any person, company, or organization that deploys or operates a covered tool for consumer-facing use with more than 50,000 monthly active users" (§ 2(h)(4)). The threshold is stated in users rather than revenue or compute, and attaches to the deployer or operator rather than the model developer.
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 user input, producing adaptive or context-responsive output; the definition "includes an AI chatbot and a generative search synthesis feature" (§ 2(h)(5)). An AI chatbot is any publicly available software system using a large language model or similar technology to generate conversational responses to user queries (§ 2(h)(2)).
The generative search synthesis feature definition (§ 2(h)(6)) is drafted to reach search-result summarization. It covers any feature of an online 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 to the user in lieu of, or more prominently than, the ranked list of hyperlinks to third-party sources that the service would otherwise return," and it applies "regardless of whether the user separately requested a summary and whether source citations accompany the generated output."
What triggers disclosure
Section 2(a)(1) requires disclosure in four cases. The 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 and 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 that has been provided or funded by a third party under a commercial arrangement; or
- contains an affiliate link or referral code, whether embedded or appended.
The second trigger reaches an omission as well as a mention, and the third reaches the retrieval and fine-tuning layers rather than only the text a user sees. A commercial arrangement is "an exchange of money, data, preferential access, or other consideration that influences the content of an AI-generated response" (§ 2(h)(3)) — consideration in data or preferential access counts alongside payment. Sponsored content is a 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 (§ 2(h)(7)). "AI" takes the meaning given in section 5002 of the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act of 2020 (15 U.S.C. 9401) (§ 2(h)(1)).
Form of disclosure
Section 2(a)(2) sets five requirements. A disclosure must be clear and conspicuous, visible without scrolling, in plain language, and provided with or before the display of the relevant content; must identify the specific nature of the relationship, "such as a paid promotion, sponsored, 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 a voice-based covered tool — one that delivers responses primarily through AI-generated speech (§ 2(h)(9)) — the disclosure may not be delivered "with any audio effect that reduces salience (such as a lower volume or pitch shift)."
Prohibited practices and operator obligations
Section 2(b) bars a covered entity from allowing 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.
Section 2(c) adds two affirmative duties. The covered entity must maintain "an internal registry of each third-party commercial arrangement that influences AI-generated content, updated in real time," and must provide users the ability to ask, within a given session or conversation, whether any response they received was subject to a commercial arrangement.
Enforcement
Enforcement runs on four tracks.
| Track | Provision | Mechanism |
|---|---|---|
| FTC rulemaking | § 2(d) | Regulations under 5 U.S.C. § 553 within 180 days of enactment and every 3 years thereafter, "to account for changes in AI technology" |
| FTC enforcement | § 2(e) | 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)) on unfair or deceptive acts or practices, with the Commission's ordinary jurisdiction, powers, penalties, privileges, and immunities |
| State attorneys general | § 2(f) | Parens patriae civil action in state or federal court for injunction, compliance, damages or restitution on behalf of residents, and other relief |
| Private right of action | § 2(g) | Injunction and/or actual monetary loss or up to $1,000 per violation, whichever is greater |
Under § 2(f)(2) a state must give the FTC written notice and a copy of the complaint before filing, or immediately upon filing where advance notice is not feasible. The Commission may then intervene, be heard on all matters, and file petitions for appeal (§ 2(f)(3)(A)). While a federal action by the FTC or the Attorney General is pending, no state may bring an action against a defendant named in that complaint for a violation alleged in it (§ 2(f)(3)(B)). Section 2(f)(4) preserves state investigative powers — oaths, subpoenas, compelled production — independent of the federal cause of action.
The private right of action (§ 2(g)) permits treble damages "not more than 3 times the amount available" where the court finds the defendant acted willfully or knowingly, awards costs and reasonable attorney's fees to a prevailing plaintiff, runs a two-year limitations period from the date the person "first discovered or had a reasonable opportunity to discover the violation," and is expressly non-exclusive of other remedies.
Relation to other law and effective date
Section 2(i)(1) states that nothing in the section limits the authority of the FTC, the Federal Communications Commission, or state consumer-protection agencies. Section 2(i)(2) provides that the section "does not preempt a State law that provides greater consumer protection related to a covered tool" — a one-way floor rather than a ceiling. State is defined broadly at § 2(h)(8) to include the District of Columbia, each commonwealth, territory, or possession, and "each federally recognized Indian Tribe." Section 2(j) sets the effective date at 12 months after enactment.
Provenance
Full text of the Introduced-in-House (ih) version, retrieved from congress.gov — the Library of Congress's official publisher of federal bill text — on August 29, 2026 via the queue task INGEST-hr-10146-ai-advertising-disclosure-act.md. Dublin Core metadata served with the page independently records bill number H.R.10146, creator Rep. Magaziner, and date 08/24/2026, matching the document header. Only one version of the bill exists. Site chrome was removed at capture; the bill text is complete and unaltered. Congress.gov listed no CRS summary at capture time. A Nextgov/FCW account of August 28, 2026 independently named the sponsor, the introduction date, and the FTC enforcement mechanism.
Relationships
- related: AI Advertising Disclosure Act (H.R. 10146, 119th Congress) — the topic page this text underlies.
- instance-of: AI Transparency — disclosure rather than restriction as the regulatory instrument.
- regulated-by: Federal Trade Commission (FTC) — the designated rulemaking and enforcement agency.
- related: State-Level AI Regulation — § 2(i)(2) preserves stronger state law rather than displacing it.
- related: Techno-Federalism — the express anti-preemption clause runs opposite to federal preemption proposals.
- related: Open-Source AI Leadership Act (H.R. 10152, 119th Congress) — introduced the same week and referred to the same committee.