New Delhi, Dec. 11 -- South Korea will require advertisers to label their ads made with artificial intelligence technologies from next year as it seeks to curb a surge of deceptive promotions featuring fabricated experts or deep-faked celebrities endorsing food or pharmaceutical products on social media.

Following a policy meeting chaired by Prime Minister Kim Min-seok on Wednesday, officials said they will ramp up screening and removal of problematic AI-generated ads and impose punitive fines, citing growing risks to consumers - especially older people who struggle to tell whether content is AI-made.

Lee Dong-hoon, director of economic and financial policy at the Office for Government Policy Coordination, said in a briefing that such a...