Every Thursday this fall, my graduate students in Ethics and Social Responsibility in Advertising, Marketing and Promotions Law (PUR 6206), FIU Global Strategic Communication-Creative Track, arrive having worked through two tracks at once. One is the law and ethics of persuasion. The other is FIU’s AI micro-credential, “AI in Communications.” The department asked me to pair the two this semester as an experiment, and the combination has proven to be a good thing. Because AI is moving so fast, my students get to watch the law and ethics of advertising being written in real time, as regulators, courts and the industry race to decide what the rules should be.
At its core, advertising law asks a simple question: is this message true, and would a reasonable consumer be misled by it? For most of the last century, that question was aimed at copywriters, art directors and the brands that paid them. Today, the “copywriter” may be an AI model generating a thousand ad variations before lunch. The AI badge teaches students what these systems are, how they produce output and where the output works and fails. Our course picks up where the badge leaves off. When AI creates an ad, a review or a product claim, is it truthful? Is it legal? Is it fair to the consumer who sees it? Each course fills a blind spot in the other. Without the badge, students can’t tell when an AI claim promises more than it can deliver. Without the law and ethics, they can use AI skillfully and still end up misleading the people they’re trying to reach.
Keeping up with the tech
In the past year alone, the ground has shifted under everything we teach. In the fall of 2025, AI video tools began producing realistic clips with synchronized voices and sound, making it possible to put convincing words in almost anyone’s mouth. AI agents started browsing, comparing and even shopping on a user’s behalf, which raises a question the law has never had to answer: what does it mean to deceive a consumer who isn’t a person? And advertising moved inside the chatbots themselves. ChatGPT ads launched as a US pilot for Free and Go tier users on February 9, 2026, then opened to self-serve US advertisers on May 5, 2026, turning a conversation into a new kind of ad placement.
No curriculum, no regulator and frankly no professor can keep pace with that on its own. The technology moves faster than any human can track, so we work hard to close the gap together. Each week, we hold the badge’s modules up against what the tools can do right now, what agencies are actually doing with them and where the rules haven’t caught up yet. In this field, knowledge has a short shelf life, and the professionals who thrive will be the ones who never stop updating what they know.
The law is racing to catch up
The alignment between the two courses shows up in almost every case we study. Early in the semester we talked about “deception at machine speed”: deepfake endorsements, synthetic reviews, personalized deception and chatbots that make claims no human approved. Since then we’re seeing AI behave in unintended ways, and from time to time, getting into unintended trouble.
A pattern begins to develop. Laws take years to write; new models ship every few weeks. That pacing problem could be discouraging, but it comes with a reassuring principle: the FTC’s authority over deception punishes the sin, not the technique. A lie told by a machine is still a lie. What the AI badge adds is the ability to see where the technology makes the old sins easier, faster and harder to detect.
What surprised me
The biggest surprise has been how easily my students fold AI into their work when they’re given a good process. The tool isn’t what makes the difference; the process is. A clearly defined task, a human who reviews and verifies the output, and honest disclosure of how AI was used. With that structure in place, students use AI to research, draft and test their thinking, and their work gets sharper rather than lazier. It’s the same lesson we teach about advertising: the ethics live in the process, not just the final product.
I’ve also seen real wariness. My students are thinking hard about what AI means for their careers, and they deserve an honest conversation about it. My view is that the tasks most exposed to automation are the ones that require the least judgment. What stays scarce is the person who knows what’s true, what’s lawful and what’s right, and who can explain the difference to a client under deadline pressure. That’s exactly the skill set these two courses build together.
Both fluencies, not one
On the first day of class, I tell students that the law is the floor – the very least we can do. Ethics is the ceiling. AI raises the stakes on both. It makes deception cheaper to produce and easier to scale, and it makes the professional who can recognize and prevent it more valuable than ever. AI literacy makes better ethical communicators. The law is racing to catch up. And the next generation of advertising and marketing professionals will need to be fluent in both.
If you want to learn more about Rene Alvarez’s work, reach out to him at renalvar@fiu.edu
