If you are using AI to write your social media posts, ads, or customer reviews, do this today: add a simple disclosure. Something like “Created with AI assistance” at the bottom of the content is enough to get started. The FTC now requires it, and you have a 90-day window before enforcement kicks in. Do not wait until day 89.
The Federal Trade Commission just published updated guidelines that apply directly to small businesses using AI tools to generate marketing content. That includes ads, promotional posts, email copy, and anything that looks like a customer review. If AI touched it, you need to say so. The rules are written broadly on purpose.
Here is what makes this different from most compliance news: the 90-day window is not a grace period in the forgiving sense. It is a countdown. The FTC has been watching AI-generated marketing pile up across social platforms for two years, and this guidance is the result of that observation. Dr. Melody White has been tracking how regulators respond to new technology cycles since the early days of the internet, and the pattern is consistent. They watch, they document, and then enforcement comes fast once the window closes. Small businesses are not exempt from that enforcement. They are often the first targets because they are easier cases to make.
The practical fix is not complicated. Most businesses can comply in an afternoon. Go through your active social accounts, your email templates, and any ads currently running. Anywhere AI wrote or significantly shaped the content, add a brief disclosure. You do not need legal language. Plain English works. Then build it into your process going forward so it happens automatically before anything posts.
The part that catches people off guard is the review angle. If you used AI to help draft responses to customer reviews, or to generate testimonial language that real customers then approved and submitted, that likely falls under these guidelines too. The FTC is looking at authenticity, not just authorship.
This is also a good moment to look at the other tools you are already using. QuickBooks just added an AI bookkeeper that flags cash flow problems in plain language, and Google has opened up free Gemini-powered AI tools inside Docs, Sheets, and Gmail for qualifying nonprofits. These are genuinely useful. But every AI tool you add to your workflow is another place where you need to understand what it is doing on your behalf, especially when it touches anything public-facing.
At On Your Side Technologies, we have been helping small businesses and nonprofits sort through exactly this kind of question: what tools are worth adopting, what the risks actually are, and what you need to have in place before regulators come looking. Thirty years of watching technology cycles taught us that the businesses that get hurt are rarely the ones doing something intentionally wrong. They just did not know a rule had changed.
Now you know. Add the disclosure today, and call us if you want a second set of eyes on where AI is showing up in your marketing workflow before the clock runs out.
Want to talk it through? We keep a few virtual coffee spots open each month — grab one while they’re available: Book a virtual coffee with Dr. White
Photo by Jud Mackrill on Unsplash
