(San Francisco) Political ads managed by Google will soon have to clearly indicate whether an artificial intelligence (AI) tool was used in their design, the American giant announced on Wednesday.

This decision by the world’s number one digital advertising company comes as the rapid development of AI generates fears about its potential misuse, particularly in the campaign for the 2024 US presidential election.

“Due to the ever-increasing use of tools that generate artificial content, we are expanding our policy by requiring advertisers to report when their election ads include material that has been digitally created or altered,” a doorman said. -Google’s word to AFP.

The group sells advertising space on its own websites and applications and acts as an intermediary between advertisers who wish to place their advertisements online and third-party websites or applications that display them.

Google already prohibits, for the advertisements it manages through its platforms, manipulations of digital content intended to mislead on political subjects and advertisements containing false claims likely to undermine confidence in the electoral system.

Starting in November, political ads will have to “clearly indicate” whether they contain “artificially created content” that depicts real or appearing to be real people or events, according to Google.

The Californian giant clarified that it continued to invest in order to be able to better detect and remove these elements.

The notice should be “clear and prominent,” Google warned, including examples of possible notices: “this image does not show an actual event” or “this video was artificially generated.”

In early July, the support committee of Ron DeSantis, candidate for the Republican primary in the United States, had caused controversy by using in a commercial a fake voice of Donald Trump generated by an AI and resembling to that of the former president.