Influencer marketing in Belgium: 80% of checked accounts still don't disclose ads

An international survey coordinated by Belgium's Economic Inspectorate finds that 92% of influencers post commercial content, but only one in five discloses it clearly. In Belgium, 80% of checked accounts still don't consistently flag their commercial posts, despite a slight improvement since 2023. A new risk has emerged too: 69% of AI-generated or AI-edited content goes undisclosed. Here is what this means for a company working with content creators.

1. What the survey found

Between March 23 and April 8, 2026, the International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network (ICPEN), coordinated by Belgium's Economic Inspectorate, ran 228 checks across 20 countries, 25 of them in Belgium. The result: 92% of checked influencers posted commercial content, but only one in five disclosed it consistently as such. In Belgium, 80% of checked accounts didn't consistently state that a post was advertising. That's an improvement on the 90% found in the EU-wide 2023 survey, but the majority of Belgian commercial posts are still poorly disclosed.

2. Why a brand is exposed too, not just the influencer

Belgian economic law requires that advertising always be recognisable as soon as a content creator receives a benefit, a free product, payment, invitation, discount code, in exchange for a mention. That obligation doesn't fall on the creator alone: a brand funding an undisclosed collaboration is exposed to the same unfair-practice risk, and above all to an immediate reputational risk if the gap is spotted by a follower or reported through ConsumerConnect. For an SME investing in an influencer campaign, the creator's compliance is part of the brief, not a side detail.

3. The new risk: AI-generated content

The survey flags a recent blind spot: 69% of influencers using AI-generated or AI-edited images don't consistently disclose it. More concerning still, more than half of the virtual influencers analysed made claims that read as personal experience, travel, health, when an entirely AI-generated profile cannot, by definition, have any experience at all. For a company exploring AI content in its influencer campaigns, transparency and labelling become a legal requirement, not a stylistic detail.

4. What to check before a collaboration

• Is the "ad" or "advertisement" tag immediately visible, before the post is opened, in the same language as the message?
• Are the platform's native labels (Instagram's Paid partnership, YouTube's includes paid promotion) switched on in addition to the tag?
• Is the creator registered as a business if they regularly post sponsored content?
• If a visual is AI-generated or AI-edited, is that clearly disclosed to the audience?

The AI lens, people first

AI can continuously scan a partner creator's posts, flag a missing ad tag or platform label, and surface undisclosed AI-generated content before a follower or an authority does. But choosing who to work with, judging whether a message fits your brand, and deciding how to respond to a gap stay human calls. Our stance: AI executes, expertise decides and watches.