FTC.
FTC Adjudicative Proceedings (FTC). No published AI policy for representative practice in FTC adjudication as of May 2026.
FTC AI policy status. #
The FTC conducts administrative adjudication for unfair-competition (Section 5 of the FTC Act) and consumer-protection matters. Representative practice is governed by 16 CFR Part 4. As of May 2026, no published AI policy applies to representative AI use in FTC adjudication. The FTC's substantive AI activity — including the September 2024 "Operation AI Comply" sweep against deceptive AI claims, the Rite Aid 2023 enforcement on facial-recognition discrimination, and the Section 5 unfairness theory the Bureau of Consumer Protection has applied to algorithmic deception — addresses what businesses may do, not what representatives may do. The two postures must be kept separate in briefs.
Authoritative source: https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library
Last verified: . If this row text disagrees with the linked source, the source controls.
Why FTC matters. #
FTC adjudicative volume is modest — typically 5-10 administrative cases pending at any time, plus a much larger civil-penalty / federal-court enforcement docket. The body of FTC unfair-and-deceptive-acts case law is largely consent-decree-based, which presents a specific AI-verification problem: AI tools frequently hallucinate citations to non-existent FTC consent orders or misattribute the rationale of one consent decree to another. Operation AI Comply has produced a flurry of recent consent decrees that are particularly vulnerable to AI confusion because they all involve AI as the regulated subject — distinguishing the rationale of one ChatGPT-related order from another is genuinely difficult even for human practitioners.
Practice implications. #
FTC adjudication representatives should: (1) follow ABA Op. 512 + applicable state-bar guidance; (2) apply enhanced verification to AI-generated FTC precedent — the consent-decree base is uniquely vulnerable to AI hallucination; (3) be careful with the Section 5 unfairness analysis when AI is the regulated subject — the FTC has actively brought AI-related Section 5 actions, and AI-generated analyses of these actions need verification against the actual orders; (4) note: Operation AI Comply consent decrees do not change practitioner AI rules — they regulate the conduct of businesses making AI-related claims, not the use of AI by representatives in FTC adjudication.