RELEASE: Gottheimer Announces Bipartisan Legislation to Require Labels on AI-Generated Content

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, July 1, 2026, Congressman Josh Gottheimer (NJ-5), Co-Chair of the Democratic AI Commission, joined with Congressmen. Tom Kean Jr. (NJ-7) and Sam Liccardo (CA-16) to announce bipartisan legislation requiring that all AI-generated content carry a built-in label embedded in its metadata — giving consumers, platforms, and regulators a reliable way to know what’s AI and what’s not.

Under the bill, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), working in coordination with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), would establish the technical rules governing exactly how the AI-generated label must appear within a file’s metadata. The FTC would then enforce those requirements as it does any other consumer protection violation.

“Americans deserve to know if what they’re seeing, reading, or hearing was made by a machine,” said Congressman Josh Gottheimer (NJ-5). “This is a commonsense, bipartisan fix — we’re simply requiring that AI content come with a built-in label, so platforms, journalists, and everyday people can tell fact from fabrication. Getting this right matters, and that’s why, as co-chair of the Democratic AI Commission, I’m proud to be working with my colleagues Congressman Kean and Liccardo to get it done.”

“As artificial intelligence becomes more sophisticated, identifying what’s real and what’s artificially generated has become a real challenge,” said Congressman Kean (NJ-7). “The Spot the Fakes Act will bring much‑needed transparency by ensuring AI‑generated content can be clearly labeled, giving Americans the transparency they need to verify the authenticity of the content they view.”

“The Spot the Fakes Act provides an essential tool in a much larger toolbox that we will need to empower American consumers to distinguish fact from AI fiction,” said Congressman Sam Liccardo (CA-16). 

The legislation builds on and reinforces momentum from the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) — a voluntary industry technical standard already backed by Adobe, Microsoft, Google, the BBC, Intel, and others. The bill would help social media platforms more easily identify AI-generated content and take appropriate action, complementing the work already underway across the tech sector.

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