Competition Act, sections 52 and 74.01 — claims about what artificial intelligence does
Anyone making a representation to the public to promote a product or a business interest. No size, revenue or sector threshold. There is no need to prove anyone was deceived, or that the person reached was in Canada, so website copy, advertisements, decks and app listings all count.
- 01Make no representation about artificial intelligence that is false or misleading in a material respect, judged on the general impression it conveys rather than only its literal words.
- 02Before publishing any claim about what your artificial intelligence does or how well it performs, carry out an adequate and proper test and keep the evidence.
- 03Be ready to discharge the burden of proof yourself. The statute puts proof of adequate and proper testing on the advertiser, not the regulator.
- 04Do not claim to use artificial intelligence if you do not, and do not overstate how autonomously it works.
- 01Nothing distinct. If you republish a vendor's performance figure as your own claim, you carry the burden of substantiating it. A supplier's marketing deck is not an adequate and proper test.
- 01There is no artificial-intelligence-specific substantiation provision in Canadian law. The substantiation paragraphs added in 2024 apply to environmental claims only. Claims about artificial intelligence are caught by the pre-existing general performance provision.
- 02No duty to label AI-generated marketing content, no duty to disclose that you use artificial intelligence, and no algorithm transparency duty.
- 03No pre-clearance or registration of advertising.
- 04Subjective description that is not a performance claim does not trigger the testing duty.
Civil penalties up to the greater of $10,000,000 for a first order or three times the benefit derived, or 3% of annual worldwide gross revenues where the benefit cannot be determined. Criminal conviction on indictment carries a fine at the court's discretion and up to 14 years. Since 20 June 2025 any person may seek leave to bring a deceptive-marketing application to the Competition Tribunal where it is in the public interest, a markedly lower bar than applies to other conduct.
Our home jurisdiction, and the one that most directly governs how we describe our own work. Whether every performance claim we publish was tested before it was published has not been assessed on the record.
“not based on an adequate and proper test thereof, the proof of which lies on the person making the representation”
Competition Act, s. 74.01(1)(b)