Legislature Approves California AI Transparency Act to Restore Trust in Online Information
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Friday, September 12, 2025
SACRAMENTO — The California legislature today approved Assemblymember Buffy Wicks’ (D-Oakland) California AI Transparency Act (AB 853), a landmark measure to help Californians discern truth from fiction online by tackling the growing threat of AI-generated disinformation. The bill now heads to Governor Gavin Newsom for his consideration.
“With AB 853, California is taking on the crisis of trust in our digital world,” said Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland). “As AI evolves, this bill ensures transparency keeps pace — so people know what’s real, what’s synthetic, and can spot disinformation before it spreads. It gives Californians the tools to navigate an online world where trust has too often been eroded.”
Sponsored by the California Initiative for Technology and Democracy (CITED), a project of California Common Cause, AB 853 builds on last year’s first-in-the-nation AI transparency law by ensuring both authentic, human-generated content and AI-generated content can be positively identified through industry-backed content provenance standards.
“Generative AI is reshaping our information ecosystem at breakneck speed, making it harder than ever to tell what’s real and what’s not,” said Leora Gershenzon, policy director at CITED. “AB 853 gives Californians new tools to stem the tide of AI-generated disinformation, increase transparency about the source of information we see online, and rebuild trust in our information ecosystem and democracy.”
If signed into law, AB 853 will:
Enable recording devices to embed system identification information at the point of capture.
Require large online platforms to display provenance details about the origins and history of content.
Reduce the flood of unlabeled content circulating online by establishing a dual system for identifying both authentic and AI-generated material.
The California Initiative for Technology and Democracy (CITED) was established to seek state-level solutions to the threats that disinformation, artificial intelligence, and other emerging technologies pose to our democracy, through a cross-disciplinary approach advised by leaders from civil rights and civic engagement, law and public policy, industry and tech, and more. It fights for a digital democracy that works for all. Learn more at https://cited.tech/.
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