Affiliate disclosure: This page contains affiliate links marked with ↗.
If you sign up through one of these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
Our rankings and reviews are editorially independent — affiliate relationships do not influence them.
Read our methodology →
S
FTC Affiliate Disclosure for AI Tool Reviews
Editorial note. Buyer-focused summary, not legal advice. The 2023 FTC Endorsement Guides update raised the stakes for affiliate sites; the FTC has since issued additional guidance on AI-specific scenarios (fake reviews, AI-generated reviews, undisclosed AI authorship). For commercial-scale operations, engage counsel.
What "clear and conspicuous" actually means
The FTC's 2023 update made clearer that disclosure must be "unavoidable." The compliance line in 2026 has four parts:
- Placement. Above or beside the first affiliate link on the page — not after, not at the bottom, not in a hover tooltip. If a sticky CTA bar shows the affiliate link first, the disclosure must be there too.
- Format. Visible without scrolling away from the affiliate offer. Don't hide it in a colour matching the background. Don't make it 9-pixel grey on white.
- Wording. Plain English. "We may earn a commission if you sign up via links on this page." Not Latin abbreviations, not legalese, not "see our affiliate disclosure for details."
- Repetition. Once per page where affiliate links appear. Sitewide footer disclosure on its own is not sufficient if individual review pages have CTAs.
What gets sites fined
Recurring patterns from FTC enforcement actions 2023–2026:
- "Affiliate disclosure" as a footer link only — bottom-of-page, with no inline disclosure on the review itself.
- "Sponsored content" labels in 8pt grey text, easy to miss.
- Fake reviews — specifically, the 2024 FTC rule against undisclosed paid reviews, fake reviews, or reviews from people who didn't use the product.
- AI-generated content not labelled as such when it materially affects the user's decision (a separate FTC focus from 2025 onwards).
- Manipulated review counts or ratings — e.g., aggregateRating values not citing a real source, or omitting negative reviews to inflate the score.
How AI Agents Guide implements this
For full transparency, our compliance posture across this site:
- Placement. The
<AffiliateDisclosure />component renders above the H1 metadata block on every review page — before the first "Visit X" CTA in the page flow. The sticky top-pick bar carries the same disclosure language inline. - Wording. "Affiliate disclosure: Some links on this site earn us a commission. See our methodology page for details." Plain English; methodology link is visible.
- Per-link labelling. Every affiliate anchor uses
rel="sponsored"so search engines and AI crawlers can identify the relationship. Browser-readable label "(affiliate link)" appears next to the sticky CTA. - Methodology. Our Methodology page documents (a) which platforms we have an affiliate relationship with, (b) which we do not (e.g., Superhuman uses an invite-only referral, no commission), (c) how affiliate relationships do not influence our verdicts, and (d) which platforms appear here despite no affiliate revenue.
- Editorial guidelines. See Editorial Guidelines, Fact-Checking Policy, and Corrections Policy for the supporting standards.
- Reviews. All editorial verdicts are written by Stephan Kulik, declared in
Review.authorJSON-LD as a Person. We do not publish AI-generated review verdicts; AI is used for first-pass research and copy editing, with editor review on every published change. - Aggregate ratings. When we cite G2, Trustpilot, or Product Hunt scores, we link to the source and date the capture. We do not assemble synthetic aggregateRating values.
What this means for buyers
If a comparison site you are reading does not place the affiliate disclosure clearly above the first CTA, treat the review with extra skepticism — in 2026 that is both an FTC compliance flag and a quality signal that the site optimises for clicks over disclosure. Reputable AI-tool review sites will make their commercial relationships unavoidable, name their author by line, and link to a real testing methodology.
FTC enforcement trajectory in 2026
- Fake-review rule (effective October 2024) — explicit prohibition on undisclosed paid reviews, AI-generated reviews passed off as human, and review-suppression tactics. Civil penalties up to ~$50K per violation.
- AI-authorship guidance — the FTC has reiterated that material use of AI to generate review content is a "fact about the review" that may need disclosure.
- Endorsement Guides updates — ongoing focus on micro-influencer disclosures, AI-generated endorsers, and "incidental" mentions inside otherwise editorial content.
The direction of travel is clear: more disclosure, more granular, harder to bury. Affiliate sites that lean into transparency are well-positioned for the regime; ones that minimise disclosure are running a clock against enforcement.