Is AI property video allowed on portals and in ads? Disclosure rules in 2026

Yes, with care. We found no law in Lebanon, the UAE or Saudi Arabia that bans AI-made property video. What the rules do ban is advertising that misrepresents the property, and some now ask for altered images to be disclosed. Here is what we found on 2026-10-04, and the rules we follow. This is not legal advice.

The principle everywhere: show the real property

Every rule we read comes back to one idea: the ad must not mislead the buyer about what is being sold. A camera move over a real house, or a cleaned-up sky, does not change what is for sale. A pool that does not exist, a view from a different window, or a finished facade on a building site does.

Dubai

Every property ad in Dubai, including posts on social media, needs a Trakheesi permit from the Dubai Land Department, and the ad must show the permit number and a Madmoun QR code. In April 2025 the DLD said its AI governance platform had monitored over 279,000 ads on Property Finder, dubizzle and Bayut and automatically modified 29 % of them. Fines for advertising violations are reported to start at AED 50,000 (a secondary source we did not check against the decision text). We found no DLD or RERA rule written specifically about AI images or CGI: the general duty is that ads are accurate and permitted.

Saudi Arabia

Under the Real Estate Brokerage Law, only licensed brokers may advertise property, each ad needs its own advertising licence, and the broker must not give misleading information about the property (Article 10). For the most serious class, misleading or concealed information is fined SAR 10,000, then 20,000, then 40,000 for repeat violations. The 2026 advertising rules go further and ban ad content that contradicts reality.

Kuwait

Kuwait's Ministry of Commerce requires that images in a property ad be genuine and accurately represent the property. For developments, only illustrative drawings of the project may be used, not images of other properties. It is the clearest "images must reflect reality" rule we found in the region.

Lebanon

We found no property advertising permit system in Lebanon and no rule about AI images. The Consumer Protection Law (No. 659 of 2005) prohibits misleading advertising; we did not read the article text itself.

Portals and platforms

• Some portals refuse CGI on verified listings: Property Finder is one, and Bayut's TruCheck badge rests on photos the agent takes on site.
• Meta requires its "AI info" label when you post organic content with a photorealistic video that was digitally created or altered.
• In California, a 2025 law (AB 723) makes agents who use digitally altered listing images say so next to the image and link to the original; lighting, colour and exposure fixes are exempt. Other regulators can copy it.
• If your ads reach buyers in the EU, diaspora buyers in France for example, the EU AI Act's transparency rule applies from 2026-08-02: realistic AI content of real places that could pass as authentic must be disclosed as artificially generated.

How Sawwer films stay on the right side

• We film the real property: no invented views, pools, floors or finishes.
• Anything not real yet carries a label on screen: "Visualisation", "Virtually staged" or "Artist's impression". The label is burnt into the film, so it travels with it.
• When we clean light or sky, your original photos come back with the film, so you can always show the property as it is today.
• You remain the advertiser: in Dubai and Saudi Arabia the permit or licence goes on your post, not ours.

The example below shows the label at work: the finished building is a visualisation made from one photo of the site, not a real finished project, and the film says "Visualisation" on screen for as long as it shows it.