The FTC has used its Section 5 authority over "unfair or deceptive acts or practices" to signal that overstated AI capabilities, undisclosed AI in customer interactions, and AI-generated content designed to mislead all fall within its enforcement reach. The Commission's 2023-2025 guidance — "Keep your AI claims in check," "Chatbots, deepfakes, and voice clones," and related blog posts — puts companies on notice that puffery about model performance and concealed AI involvement in human-presenting interactions can be actionable.
Enforcement actions against AI products that misrepresented their accuracy or hid their bot nature have established FTC precedent that the same consumer-protection rules apply to AI as to any other product.