From 24 August, ChatGPT ads arrive across the EU and Switzerland — but built differently: consent-first, contextual-only, opt-in for more. GDPR reshaped the product in real time. A genuine win for the Brussels Effect, and a sharp question about whether consent is control or ritual.
Meta launched Muse Image on July 9 — a feature inside Meta AI that lets any user @-tag a public Instagram account and generate an AI image using that person’s likeness, with no notice and no consent, because public accounts are opted in by default. SAG-AFTRA, Public Citizen and top talent agencies condemned it within a day. Meta points to an invisible AI watermark and an opt-out toggle. But in Europe, an opt-out-by-default model collides directly with the GDPR’s consent requirements and the EU AI Act’s transparency rules. gafam.ai reads the European reckoning.