[DECODED] When regulation lags, how do organizations protect their truth?

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In case you missed it, the Ad Standards Council (ASC) released last week its guidelines on the use of artificial intelligence in advertising. ASC’s Circular No. 2026-014 mandates that:

Hello, I am Iris B. Gonzales. I started my career in advertising back in 2018. Today, I am a Senior Brand Strategist at The Nerve and am also enrolled at the FEU Institute of Law. I chose both paths because of a growing unease about influence operations and how they affect our information landscape and, ultimately, the democratic systems we seek to uphold.

We at The Nerve have studied how influence operations in the Philippines can mislead audiences, manipulate narratives, and damage organizations’ reputations at scale. These operations now involve synthetic, AI-generated content — and the preliminary report of the Independent International Scientific Panel on AI, co-chaired by The Nerve’s Head of Global Strategy Maria Ressa, points out that such content slowly erodes our ability to distinguish authentic from generated content.

That’s a slippery slope toward distrust of media that could otherwise be truthful, termed the “liar’s dividend” in the UN report.

This is why I welcome the ASC’s move to require advertisers to disclose AI use in their content. To be clear, ASC stated that the use of AI by itself doesn’t render an ad misleading or deceptive. The circular merely aims to promote transparency in AI use and compliance with existing laws.

An added benefit, in my view, is that these labels will allow us as consumers to better recognize the tell-tale signs of AI-generated content, and hopefully apply the same discipline to the other content that we consume.

But that discipline only works if the labels are honest in the first place. Advertisers play a crucial role in preserving this authenticity. The more advertisers invest in truth, the more trust they build — not just for their respective organizations, but even for our information ecosystem.

This ASC circular is just one of many discussions we should be having now that AI is developing faster than our ability to measure or govern it. When regulation lags, brands and organizations are often left to police themselves, leaving them vulnerable to reputational risks. For those navigating this shift, the question now becomes: are you ready when that risk hits your organization?

If you’re looking to protect your organization’s reputation in the age of AI, join us in our Crisis Management Masterclass on Friday, October 9. You may also join more of these discussions exploring human values during this year’s Social Good Summit. – Rappler.com