On 19 March 2026, the Court of Pistoia issued an interesting interim order concerning a case of unfair competition involving the use of generative artificial intelligence in the context of a company’s promotional activities, clarifying that the use of AI does not exempt the entrepreneur from liability and does not eliminate the duty of human oversight over messages disseminated to the public.

The ruling stems from an action for parasitic unfair competition brought by a company (an Italian firm in the mattress and sleep products sector, with a sponsorship contract with a pair of testimonials well known to the television audience) against a competitor (operator of an e-commerce site) accused of misappropriating the distinctive signs and testimonials of others, with the aim of exploiting the plaintiff company’s reputation and customer base (in particular, anyone typing the names of the testimonials into Google was redirected to the defendant’s e-commerce page, and anyone searching for information on sleep-related products saw a reference to the keyword associated with the competing brand appear). The allegations of unfair competition were joined by those of misleading advertising, based on the attribution to the products of beneficial effects lacking proven scientific validity.

The defendant company’s defence argued that the disputed content was the result of an automated generation process using AI, without direct human review. Consequently, according to this argument, there was no specific editorial intent to refer to specific individuals or to invoke well-known persons for commercial purposes.

The defence argument, however, was not deemed by the Court to be sufficient to exclude the defendant’s liability for the content disseminated in relation to unfair competition and misleading advertising, resulting in a prohibition on the use of distinctive signs, including testimonials, attributable to the claimant company, and on the dissemination of misleading advertising messages, as well as an order to cease any further conduct likely to cause confusion, diverting customers or bringing the business into disrepute. This was based on the general principles already available in the Italian legal system, despite the matter being innovative and rapidly evolving (Article 2598 of the Civil Code, Legislative Decree 145/2007 and the Consumer Code).

In particular, the decisive passage of the ruling lies in the assertion that the AI system is not autonomous in legally relevant decisions and cannot be considered a liable entity (“at least for now, it is not capable of taking any initiative”). This is significant because it reaffirms a fundamental principle: the use of automated systems does not exempt the company from legal liability for the content generated.

The ruling by the Court of Pistoia is therefore significant beyond the specific case, as it clarifies that the use of AI does not exempt the company from liability for unlawful content in its commercial strategies but, on the contrary, requires informed management in terms of effective human supervision, aimed at ensuring the legality, reliability and fair competition of communications directed at the market.