New Chinese Policy Encourages AI in Advertising

In Brief: A new Chinese policy calls for more AI in the advertising industry, but also emphasizes that existing rules must be followed.

In Detail: 

On 23 June 2026, the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) and five other agencies jointly issued the Opinions on Vigorously Promoting the High-Quality Development of the Advertising Industry in the New Era, setting out a national strategy for developing China’s advertising industry, including the use of AI.

In particular, the Opinions call for wider adoption of AI and other digital technologies, including to:

• develop “digital intelligent advertising” (数智广告), which includes making good use of compute and providing compute for advertising content production and delivery,

• encourage new advertising business models, 

• improve industry infrastructure, especially in China’s western region,

• support the use of advertising to strengthen brands, stimulate consumption and help Chinese companies expand overseas. 

• encourage AI R&D to provide technology open-sourcing, computing power support, and hardware sharing for small and medium-sized digital advertising enterprises, and

• support the “digital, intelligent, and scenario-based” development of outdoor advertising. 

In a more traditional vein, the Opinions also promote regional advertising clusters and continued investment in talent and innovation.

At a high level, this can be read as a typical Chinese industrial planning document strongly encouraging the advertising sector to make use of the latest technology to produce better results. But the Opinions also emphasize compliance with existing laws, and call for continued efforts to clean up the advertising market, including many longstanding targets such as:

• Rectifying “irregularities” in internet advertising, like illegal citations, illegal livestream e-commerce advertising, and illegal AI-generated advertising; 

• Supporting revisions to specialist laws, such as the Interim Measures for the Review and Administration of Advertisements for Drugs, Medical Devices, Health Foods, and Foods for Special Medical Purposes and the Interim Measures for the Promotion and Administration of Public Interest Advertising, and 

• Increasing protection of advertising data and personal information, including data classification and grading, and systems related to data export security. 

In the AI context, this should also be understood by reference to the many strict rules China has released over the past several years targeting recommendation algorithms, deep synthesis technology, generative AI services and AI-generated content labeling, which are in no way softened by this non-binding policy opinion. 

Key Takeaways:

On balance then, when considering greater use of AI in China, advertisers and compliance teams should understand these Opinions as primarily indicating that PRC authorities will not be reflexively suspicious of AI in advertising content or production, and may even offer support for novel uses of AI-enabled technology in this sector. At the same time, because of the continued emphasis on compliance, advertisers should remain vigilant about the most sensitive uses of AI in advertising, including AI-generated advertising content and labeling (particularly influencer marketing and livestreaming), AI-supported personalization and profiling, and the use of personal information for AI-driven targeting and analytics.

Finally, it’s worth noting that the Opinions also strongly encourage Chinese agencies and platforms to seek collaborations abroad through partnerships, festivals, talent, client engagements, etc., and include the promise of better access to bank financing for these initiatives. In combination with the Opinions’ encouragement of AI in advertising, this indicates that the PRC authorities see the advertising industry as an area of strong potential growth, warranting both support and continued regulation, both inside and outside China.