Google starts labeling AI-made ads, just before the EU AI Act makes it mandatory
A new "How this ad was made" tag hits Search, YouTube, and Discover — automatic for Google's own AI tools, self-declared for everyone else
by Markus Busch
What shipped. Google is rolling out a consumer-facing label that tells people when an ad was built with AI. Announced July 9, the "How this ad was made" option sits inside the My Ad Center panel — reached from the three-dot menu or the info icon on any ad across Google Search, YouTube, and Discover — and shows whether the creative was created or edited with AI. It is live globally.
The catch. The disclosure only runs itself when advertisers use Google's own generative AI ad tools. In that case the label is applied automatically, with no action required. Ads built with anything else — Canva, Adobe Firefly, a Midjourney-class generator — get labeled only if the advertiser flips a new self-declaration control. Google says it will not check whether that declaration is accurate.
The timing. None of this is incidental. The EU AI Act's Article 50 transparency rules become enforceable August 2, carrying fines up to €15 million or 3% of global turnover for undisclosed synthetic content. Google's label hands advertisers a mechanism weeks before the obligation starts to bite.
What it means for your marketing. Two things follow for a hotel marketing team. Generate campaign creative with Google's tools — a suite staged in a season you never shot, a rooftop bar dressed for a summer that hasn't arrived — and the AI tag travels with the ad whether you want it shown or not. Generate it anywhere else and disclosure becomes your call, and in the EU it is shortly the law. Either way, the distance between a polished AI image and the room a guest actually walks into is now visible to the booker at the moment of the click.
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