The ASA’s Pulse Reports – Winner of the Silver EASA Best Practice Award 2026
12 November 2026
The Best Practice Awards, held every two years, celebrate innovation and excellence in the field of advertising self-regulation. Each week, we shine a spotlight on a different winning entry. This week, we feature UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), which received the Silver EASA Best Practice Award for its Pulse Reports.
Using AI to gain a market-wide view of advertising
The ASA’s Pulse Reports use AI and large-scale advertising data to understand what is happening across whole markets, rather than relying only on individual complaints or investigations.
Through its Active Ad Monitoring system, the ASA can capture and analyse online advertising at a scale far beyond what would be possible through human review alone. The Pulse Reports turn this capability into practical regulatory intelligence, helping the organisation understand where compliance is strong, where problems are concentrated and where intervention can make the greatest difference.
The ASA has published two Pulse Reports so far, focusing on alcohol advertising and environmental claims.
Two reports, two different areas of focus
The first Pulse Report analysed nearly 6,000 alcohol-related ads against the whole alcohol section of the UK Advertising Code. Using AI alongside expert human review, the ASA estimated that around 96% were likely compliant. The analysis also identified a specific problem with missing or unclear ABV declarations in advertising for low- and no-alcohol products.
The second Pulse Report analysed 7.7 million consumer ads to understand the use of environmental claims across the economy. It found that environmental claims appeared in around 1% of ads, but around three-quarters of those claims were absolute, such as “sustainable” or “eco-friendly”, and therefore carried a higher risk of misleading consumers if not properly substantiated.
Combining AI with human expertise
The two studies used different AI-assisted methodologies, tailored to the regulatory question being asked. For the Alcohol Pulse, a Large Language Model flagged potentially problematic ads for review by alcohol specialists. The ASA also tested a sample that the AI had not flagged to understand what the model might be missing.
For the Environmental Claims Pulse, AI models helped filter the dataset, identify and extract environmental claims, classify them as absolute or comparative, and group advertisers into sectors. Specialist staff then interpreted the patterns and identified the most important regulatory insights.
In both studies, the ASA tested AI performance against separately human-labelled data to understand where the models performed well and where they were less reliable. Rather than removing human judgement, the ASA used it where it added most value, ensuring that conclusions did not go beyond what the evidence could support.
From findings to regulatory action
The findings have informed the ASA’s ongoing regulatory work. The Alcohol Pulse led to direct follow-up and ongoing engagement with advertisers, trade bodies and other industry stakeholders, alongside targeted compliance advice. Meanwhile, the Environmental Claims Pulse is informing ongoing monitoring, industry engagement, guidance and enforcement work.
Together, the reports have established a repeatable model for proactive, evidence-led regulation. The ASA is already applying the approach to health claims, with the potential to extend it to other areas where a market-wide view could improve consumer protection and regulatory targeting.
The Pulse Reports demonstrate how AI and human expertise can work together to support more informed, targeted and proportionate advertising regulation, offering an approach that other self-regulatory organisations can adapt to their own markets and capabilities.
