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 PictoPop, an AI image-to-video generation app, seen on 31 March 2026.
The ad included the caption: “What if AI could bring your imagination to life? PictoPop lets adults explore bold, creative photo transformations in seconds. Easy. Addictive”. The ad featured a video showing a young woman and an older looking man standing face-to-face in a domestic setting. The woman was wearing a black sports bra and a short white skirt, while the man was wearing a white T-shirt and dark trousers. The woman knelt on one knee and used both hands to unbutton the man's trousers. Text overlaid on the video stated, “turn photos into hot motion”.
The video then cut to a graphic displaying the PictoPop logo, alongside the text “AI VIDEO GENERATOR” and “App Store – 1M+ downloads”, as well as a “Download on the App Store” logo.
The ad also included a “Learn more” button and the text “Try it now!”.
Issue
The ASA challenged whether the ad sexualised and objectified women and was therefore irresponsible, offensive and harmful.
Response
Sinosea Technology PTE Ltd t/a PictoPop 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 Sinosea Technology PTE Ltd t/a PictoPop's lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code, which was a breach of CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.7 (Unreasonable delay). 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 woman wearing a black sports bra and short white skirt kneeling in front of a man and used both of her hands to unbutton his trousers. The ASA considered that viewers were likely to understand that she was about to perform a sexual act on him. We further considered viewers would understand the claims “turn photos into hot motion” and “PictoPop lets adults explore bold, creative photo transformations in seconds. Easy. Addictive” to mean that the app was capable of generating videos from still images, including sexualised content, at the user’s discretion. Additionally, the claim “Easy. Addictive” reinforced the impression that the app could be used easily to create such content for the user’s sexual gratification.
We considered that the woman was depicted in a sexualised and subordinate role because she was shown kneeling before a standing man and was beginning to unbutton his trousers. Because that imagery was used to demonstrate the app’s function, we considered the ad presented her as a sexual object. We therefore considered that, the ad reinforced the harmful stereotype 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 who appeared to be about to perform a sexual act, and implied that users could select any photo from which to create a sexually explicit video, we considered that the ad condoned the digital manipulation of women’s images to create sexually explicit content without their consent.
For those reasons, we concluded that 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 Sinosea Technology PTE Ltd t/a PictoPop 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.
