Binding law — in force
Conspicuously disclose a synthetic performer in an advertisement (New York Gen. Bus. Law 396-b)
From 2026-06-09, any person engaged in the business of dealing in property or a service who, for a commercial purpose, produces or creates an advertisement for it, in any medium, must conspicuously disclose in the advertisement that a synthetic performer is in it, where the person has actual knowledge (Gen. Bus. Law 396-b(3)). A synthetic performer is a digitally created asset created, reproduced or modified by computer using generative AI or a software algorithm, intended to create the impression of a human performer who is not recognizable as an identifiable natural performer (396-b(1)(c)). Ads for expressive works using the performer consistently, audio ads, translation-only uses and the advertising media themselves are excluded (396-b(4), (7), (8)). Civil penalty $1,000 for a first violation, $5,000 for each later one. Detect ad-generation code that adds an AI avatar or digital human with no disclosure.
Trust and provenance not reviewed by a lawyer · audit-grade · source verified 4 Oct 2026 · release 2026.10.04.3
- Lane
- Binding law — in force In force: applies since 9 Jun 2026
- Official source
- N.Y. Gen. Bus. Law 396-b(3) · captured 4 Oct 2026 · anchor hash (SHA-256)
61a8bc8cb601…· 8 more anchors in the data release - Verification
- Quoted text found word for word in the captured official document (4 Oct 2026). Source last verified 4 Oct 2026: checked against the captured official document.
- Data release
- Data release 2026.10.04.3, data as of 4 Oct 2026, schema 0.3.10.
- Legal review
- Not reviewed by a lawyer. TwinEthos derived this rule from the official text it cites: treat it as research to check against that text; it is not legal advice. No TwinEthos rule has been legally reviewed yet. Open questions for counsel on this rule: 1.
- Audit standard
- Audit-grade: meets all 10 checks of the TwinEthos audit standard that apply to it. The audit standard is TwinEthos's own quality bar for provenance, dates, applicability, detectors, fixtures, remediation and licences; it is not a legal review.
- Detectors
1 detector (code pattern), experimental: written from the rule's text and not yet measured for precision on real code, so treat a hit as a lead to verify.
Known limits:
- Ads assembled in a video editor outside the repository
- Disclosures added by the ad platform
- The disclosure overlay may be applied by a rendering service or ad-server template in another file; check the export path. Avatars used for training videos or support, not advertising, are out of scope.
Who it applies to
- Duty falls on: any person
- Any person engaged in the business of dealing in property or services who, for a commercial purpose, produces or creates an advertisement featuring a synthetic performer, in any medium, in New York, where the person has actual knowledge of it; ad-generation tools that insert the performer are where the disclosure is produced. Applies from 2026-06-09.
- Not covered:
- Advertisements and promotional materials for expressive works where the synthetic performer is used consistently with the work (396-b(4))
- Audio advertisements (396-b(7)(a))
- Uses of AI solely for language translation of a human performer (396-b(7)(b))
- Any medium used for advertising (newspapers, magazines, television, streaming, cable, billboards, transit) that publishes or disseminates the advertisement (396-b(8))
- Whether it applies depends on facts outside the code; a person has to decide.
The guard to add
Add a clear 'synthetic performer' disclosure to every generated ad that features an AI avatar, presenter or human-like voice.
The ad-composition pipeline marks an ad as containing a synthetic performer whenever it inserts an AI avatar, digital human or synthetic voice; the renderer then overlays a legible disclosure ('This performance features a synthetic performer' / 'No human performer is depicted'; in Turkey a clear, distinguishable statement that AI is used), for the whole time the performer is on screen where required, and the export refuses an ad that is marked but undisclosed. Translation or accessibility-only uses are recorded as such.
Where it goes: 9 AI output handling, 1 application source code, 14 user-facing text.
What this provision adds:
- The disclosure is in the advertisement itself, conspicuous, in any medium the advertisement appears in.
Example (Python ad generator + avatar video API), before:
video = avatar_api.create_video(avatar_id=AVATAR, script=ad_script)
publish_ad(campaign, video)After:
DISCLOSURE = 'This performance features a synthetic performer'
video = avatar_api.create_video(avatar_id=AVATAR, script=ad_script)
video = overlay_caption(video, DISCLOSURE, whole_duration=True)
publish_ad(campaign, video, synthetic_performer=True)Control: An advertisement featuring an AI-generated synthetic performer or human-like digital character is published without a clear disclosure. The same guard addresses 3 items with binding law in 3 jurisdictions. Engineering guidance, not legal advice.
Rule id ny-gbl-396b.synthetic-performer-ad-disclosure · review status: primary source derived