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 by Banz Loy Smith for Rusto AI, an image generator tool, seen on 2 April 2026, featured text which stated, “[explosion emoji] Ready to pop? Our cherry AI detonates explosive smarts, blasting your workload with juicy, mind-blowing pleasure. Pop it good! [peach emoji]”.
Beneath was a video with on-screen text which stated, “Fortune favours the bold”. When the play button was clicked, the voice-over and on-screen text stated, “one photo one click unleash your imaginnation [sic]”. The video included a hand holding a small photo of a woman with large breasts wearing a low cut, cropped top and mini skirt. The same woman was then shown with a man standing behind her, appearing to have sexual intercourse, with the top halves of their bodies partially obscured. Further blurred images of women wearing revealing clothing were swiped through with text which stated, “PHOTO TO VIDEO MASTER [camera emoji]”.
Underneath the video text stated “[cherry emoji] Pop AI’s Cherry Bomb! [cherry emoji]” and a button labelled “Install now”.
Issue
The ASA challenged whether the ad sexualised and objectified women and was therefore irresponsible, offensive and harmful.
Response
Rusto AI-AI Photo Toolbox t/a Rusto AI and Person(s) unknown t/a Banz Loy Smith 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 Rusto AI-AI Photo Toolbox t/a Rusto AI and Person(s) unknown t/a Banz Loy Smith, as well as the failure from Person(s) unknown t/a Banz Loy Smith to provide their full name and geographical business address, which were breaches of CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.7 (Unreasonable delays) 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 showed a full-length image of a large-breasted woman in a revealing top and mini skirt. It then showed the same woman with a man standing behind her, both appeared to be naked and engaging in sexual intercourse, whilst a voice-over and on-screen text stated, “one photo one click unleash your imaginnation [sic]” and “PHOTO TO VIDEO”. We considered viewers would understand that the app could generate nude and sexually explicit video content by uploading a photograph at the user’s discretion.
We further considered the claims “unleash your imaginnation [sic]”, “Ready to pop? Our cherry AI detonates explosive smarts, blasting your workload with juicy, mind-blowing pleasure” the peach and cherry emojis, which we understood were commonly used as references to a bottom and breasts, reinforced the impression that the app could be used for the user’s sexual gratification. For those reasons, we considered that by implying viewers could remove a woman’s clothing and generate a video of her participating in sexually explicit content, the ad reduced her to a sexual object. Additionally, the ad showed further blurred images of a selection of women in revealing clothing being swiped through. We considered viewers would understand that those women were examples of individuals whose images could be used to generate similar nude or sexually explicit videos. We therefore considered the ad reinforced the harmful impression that it was acceptable to objectify and stereotype women by presenting them as sexual objects.
Furthermore, we considered that the references to “mind-blowing pleasure” and “unleash your imaginnation [sic]”, and the use of the cherry and peach emojis, together with the sexual content in the ad, implied that there were no limits as to what could be depicted in a video generated from a photograph using the app. We considered, therefore, that it condoned and encouraged the digital manipulation of women's images to create sexually explicit content without their consent.
For those reasons, we concluded the ad was irresponsible, included a harmful gender stereotype and was 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 by Rusto AI-AI Photo Toolbox t/a Rusto AI and Person(s) unknown t/a Banz Loy Smith 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.
