New York makes advertisers confess when an actor isn't real

New York has become the first American state to require advertisers to say, in plain terms, when the person on screen does not exist. On the eleventh of December 2025, Governor Kathy Hochul signed the Synthetic Performer Disclosure Law, which requires anyone who produces a visual or audiovisual advertisement to conspicuously disclose an AI-generated synthetic performer where the business knows one has been used. The rule takes effect on the ninth of June 2026.

Enforcement is modest by design. First-time violators face civil fines described as reaching $1,000, with repeat offences carrying penalties up to $5,000, and the screen actors’ union SAG-AFTRA backed the measure as it moved through Albany.

“In New York, we are setting the rules of the road instead of letting AI run the show.”

That line from Hochul captures the law’s real ambition: making a synthetic performer’s presence legible to the audience, rather than restricting its use. The harder question is who checks compliance, particularly since the disclosure duty only bites once an advertiser already knows it has used a synthetic performer, leaving convincing fakes that nobody flags largely outside the law’s reach. Hours after Hochul’s signature, President Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to challenge state AI laws and to withhold certain federal funding from states with rules it deems overly burdensome, so New York’s law now heads toward its June start date as both a possible model for other states and a test case for how far Washington can reach into state AI regulation.