The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is warning companies to “Keep your AI claims in check.” An FTC Business Blog post states that consumers have been primed through generations of stories about inanimate objects coming to life to believe what marketers say about their products relative to artificial intelligence (AI), and that marketers should know that false or unsubstantiated claims about a product’s abilities and benefits will not be tolerated.

Specifically, the FTC wants marketers to think about the following questions when mentioning AI in their advertising:

• Are you exaggerating what your AI product can do?
• Are you promising that your AI product does something better than a non-AI product?
• Are you aware of the risks?
• Does the product actually use AI at all?

Overall, the FTC wants to remind marketers to possess adequate substantiation for their AI claims and not to overpromise what their AI-based tools and devices can do. As the blog concludes, “You don’t need a machine to predict what the FTC might do when those claims are unsupported.”