Background
This ruling forms part of a wider piece of ongoing work on the advertising of AI products across a number of sectors. The ads were identified for investigation following intelligence gathered by our Active Ad Monitoring system, which uses AI to proactively search for online ads that might break the rules. See also related rulings published on 16 September 2026.
Ad description
A paid-for Meta ad for an app identified as KH31 DD22, an AI image-to-video generation app, seen on 2 April 2026. The ad included the caption “People are quietly using AI to transform photos. No editing skills. No complex steps. Just upload and watch what AI creates. Some results are... surprising.”
The ad featured an image of a blonde-haired woman outdoors in a residential street, wearing a white cropped top and a pink skirt, with one of her legs kneeling against a water fountain. She then lifted her top to expose her breasts and held them with her hands.
The next clip showed a phone interface which demonstrated how the app worked. Text stated “OffTop720pVideoTask” and “Upload Photo select photo to create your video”. A white dot selected a “select photo” button.
The video then cut to an image of the same woman with the text “Before” in the left corner and a button at the bottom which stated “createVideo”. In the “Before” image, she was wearing the same white cropped top and pink skirt, with her breasts covered. When the button was selected, the image transformed into an “After” version in which she exposed and squeezed her breasts.
Text underneath the video stated “What happens when AI takes control?”, alongside a further button labelled “Download”.
Issue
The ASA challenged whether the ad sexualised and objectified women and was therefore irresponsible, offensive and harmful.
Response
Person(s) unknown t/a KH31 DD22 did not respond to the ASA's enquiries.
Meta confirmed that the ad had appeared on its platform but said it breached its advertising guidelines and standards. They said the ad had already been removed before they were contacted by the ASA.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA was concerned by the lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code by Person(s) unknown t/a KH31 DD22, as well as their failure to provide their full name and geographical business address, which were breaches of CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.7 (Unreasonable delay) and 1.7.1 (Compliance). We reminded them of their responsibility to respond promptly to our enquiries and told them to do so in future.
The CAP Code stated that ads must be prepared with a sense of responsibility to consumers and to society, must not cause serious or widespread offence and must not include gender stereotypes that were likely to cause harm.
The ad included the text “People are quietly using AI to transform photos” and “Just upload and watch what AI creates”. It also featured an image of a woman wearing a white cropped top and pink skirt which then transformed into a video in which she lifted her top and exposed and touched her breasts. We considered viewers were likely to understand that the app was capable of generating videos from an image, including by removing clothing and creating sexually explicit content at the user’s discretion. We further considered that the claim “Some results are … surprising” reinforced the impression that the app could be used to create videos that exposed women’s bodies for the user’s sexual gratification. For those reasons, we considered that by promoting the manipulation of a photograph of a woman into a sexually explicit video, the ad reduced the woman to a sexual object. For those reasons, we considered the ad reinforced the harmful impression that it was acceptable to objectify and stereotype women by presenting them as sexual objects.
Furthermore, because the ad included sexualised content that showed a woman expose and touch her breasts, and implied that users could select any photo from which a sexually explicit video could be created, we considered the ad condoned the digital manipulation of women’s images to create sexually explicit content without their consent.
Therefore, we concluded that the ad was irresponsible, included a harmful gender stereotype and likely to cause serious offence.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 1.3 (Social responsibility), 4.1 and 4.9 (Harm and offence).
Action
The ad must not appear again in the form investigated. We told Person(s) unknown t/a KH31 DD22 to ensure that their ads were socially responsible and did not cause serious or widespread offence, including by featuring a harmful gender stereotype that objectified and sexualised women. We referred the matter to CAP’s Compliance team.
