The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has announced the results of the AI trial to check if alcohol adverts are sticking to the rules.
The findings show most alcohol advertisers are following the rules but “advertising by the alcohol-free sector raised more consistent concerns” with about 48% of alcohol-free product ads flagged for potential breaches using ASA’s AI-based Active Ad Monitoring System that captured and processed almost 6,000 paid-for ads shown to the UK public in early 2025.
This included ads for alcoholic drinks, alcohol-free alternatives and promotions from venues, events and other alcohol-related contexts, across search, display and social media.
On the adverts flagged, ASA said: “Almost all of these related to unclear or missing ABV labelling, an issue that can be easily rectified but an important requirement that matters for people who avoid alcohol altogether, including for health, religious or personal reasons.
“It’s positive to see the alcohol sector is largely following the rules but the findings suggest alcohol-free advertisers may need to take more care to ensure they are consistently following the rules.
Advice for alcohol-free sector
“We’ll now be contacting the advertisers responsible for the clear breaches we identified and publishing advice for the alcohol-free sector, particularly on ABV labelling.”
ASA added this trial shows how it is using AI to deliver “world-leading” regulation and the central role it is playing in supporting important areas of its work.
It added the lessons from this trial will guide future improvements, making its AI tool even more precise and useful across different areas.
Its findings showed:
• 96% of the ads seen were likely to be in line with the alcohol specific advertising rules
• Just 1-3% appeared to break the rules
• The remaining 1% needed further review to determine whether they broke the rules.
Each ad, including its text and imagery, was assessed by Large Language Models (LLMs), which are advanced AI tools that can interpret and apply ASA’s rules.
Ads flagged by the LLMs as being at risk of breaking the rules were then reviewed by the authority’s human experts to determine whether the content flagged was indeed a likely breach.
Health and nutritional claims
The most frequent issues 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.
All these issues were seen across ads by both large national hospitality chains and smaller advertisers, including independent venues.
ASA director of data science Adam Davison said: “We believe AI has the potential to make our online ad regulation much faster and more effective.
“This report shows 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.
“It highlights that the alcohol sector is generally sticking to the rules, which is great news. We’ve also spotted places where we think we can do more and deliver better regulation thanks to our rapid adoption of AI.”
