TikTok’s policy for AI ads isn’t working | The Verge

AIReportTechTikTok’s policy for AI ads isn’t workingCompanies that are supposedly pro-transparency can’t even be honest with each other, let alone the rest of us.Companies that are supposedly pro-transparency can’t even be honest with each other, let alone the rest of us.by Jess WeatherbedMar 28, 2026, 2:00 PM UTCLinkShareGiftSamsung, like many companies using generative AI in their advertising, hasn’t placed an AI label on several videos shared through its TikTok accounts, and the fine print doesn’t always contain the answers. Image by SamsungJess Weatherbed is a news writer focused on creative industries, computing, and internet culture. Jess started her career at TechRadar, covering news and hardware reviews.I’ve been struggling to tell whether the ads appearing in my TikTok feeds have been made with generative AI tools. As someone who spends a great deal of time scrutinizing images and videos for the usual “tells” that something was synthetically generated, some of the promotions I’ve seen have definitely sparked suspicion. For several weeks, I didn’t see any examples with the AI disclosure required by TikTok’s advertising policies, however, so I had no way of knowing for sure.What irks me is that someone knows for sure if the content is AI-generated. They’re just not telling the rest of us. And if companies that claim to support AI-labelling initiatives actually want them to succeed, they should probably do something about that.Take Samsung, for example. After slopp...