The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has conducted a trial to explore the use of AI to determine whether adverts for alcohol are complying with regulation.
The UK regulator said results found the “overwhelming majority” of alcohol advertisers are compliant, with the trial marking a significant step in how new technologies like AI can support regulation.
The aim of the trial was to see whether AI could help the ASA spot potential problems which could be overlooked by traditional monitoring while giving a clearer picture of general compliance.
The trial analysed almost 6,000 paid-for ads shown to the UK public in early 2025, including alcoholic drinks, alcohol-free alternatives and related promotions across search, display and social media.
Large language models (LLMS) assessed the text and imaging for each advert and flagged those which were at risk of breaking the rules.
These were then reviewed by human experts to determine if the flagged content was a beach of the regulations.
The ASA said the initial results are encouraging, demonstrating that 96 per cent of adverts are following the rules.
Around three per cent appeared to break the rules while one per cent of adverts needed further review.
The ad watchdog said that the most frequent issues it observed across the small number of ads that appeared to break the rules included misleading or unauthorised health or nutritional claims, ads promoting irresponsible drinking, and content likely to have particular appeal to children.
The regulator said that advertising by the alcohol-free sector raised more consistent concerns, as around 48 per cent of alcohol-free product ads were flagged for potential breaches.
While the ASA has used AI since 2023 to proactively monitor advertising, it said the trial is the first time it has used AI to check such a large volume of adverts against the rules.
The ASA said that the trial will guide future improvements to the AI tools it currently uses to make them even more precise and useful across different areas.
By combining AI with expert human judgement, the ASA said it can obtain a clearer picture of where ads meet or fall short of the rules, enabling faster and more effective action on emerging risks.
Adam Davison, director of data science at the ASA, said that the organisation believes that AI has the potential to make online advertising regulation faster and more efficient.
“This report shows that the latest advances in AI can be used to help our experts scan large volumes of ads and check them against lots of complex rules more quickly,” he added. “We’ve also spotted places where we think we can do more and deliver better regulation thanks to our rapid adoption of AI.”
