Rule 2210 has required an appropriately qualified principal to approve most retail communications before they go out — full stop — since long before anyone was posting on social media or generating marketing copy with AI. On July 9, 2026, FINRA published Regulatory Notice 26-14, proposing to replace that blanket pre-use approval requirement with a modernized, risk-based supervisory standard. Comments are due September 11, 2026.
This isn't a minor tweak. If adopted, it would change how nearly every firm's written supervisory procedures define what needs a principal's sign-off before it reaches a client or prospect — and it's arriving specifically because the current rule has become genuinely hard to apply to social media and Gen AI content.
Why the current rule is straining
Rule 2210 currently carves communications into three buckets — retail, correspondence, and institutional — and requires principal pre-use approval for retail communications, with limited exceptions for "interactive" social media content and posts that don't recommend a product or service. FINRA says that static/interactive distinction has become difficult to apply as social platforms have blurred the line between the two, and that pre-use approval simply doesn't fit the speed and volume of AI-generated content. Firms are responsible for AI-generated communications regardless of who or what produced them, but requiring principal sign-off on every AI output before it's used has become, in FINRA's words, a genuine practical challenge.
What FINRA is proposing instead
Rather than mandating pre-use approval for all retail communications, the proposal would require firms to adopt written procedures — tailored to their own size, business, and risk profile — that determine which categories of retail communications actually need principal review before use. FINRA has proposed a non-exhaustive list of factors firms would need to weigh in building that framework:
- Nature and complexity of the product or service being communicated about
- Qualifications and experience of whoever prepared, endorsed, or approved the content — including paid endorsers and "finfluencers"
- Whether the communication makes a recommendation or promotes a product or service
- Whether it promotes a product or service offered through an affiliate or third party
- Whether it appears tailored to a specific audience or individual
- Inclusion of performance data, rankings, or comparisons
- Medium and distribution method
- The firm's or associated person's history of communication issues on that product, service, or method
Firms that skip pre-use review for a given category would still need to build in training, documentation, and ongoing surveillance to catch problems after the fact — and to be able to show FINRA evidence that those procedures are actually being followed. Importantly, none of this changes the underlying content standard: communications still have to be fair, balanced, and free of false or misleading claims. What changes is who has to sign off, and when.
How Compliers Can Help
This proposal would directly reshape how firms structure marketing and communications supervision in their WSPs — especially for social media and AI-assisted content. Our Code of Ethics & Oversight work covers exactly this kind of email, marketing, and communications review, and we can help you build a risk-based framework now so you're ready however this rule lands.
Other pieces worth knowing about
Two smaller but practical changes are bundled into the same proposal. First, the one-year window during which new members must file every widely disseminated retail communication would start running from a firm's first actual filing with FINRA's Advertising Regulation Department, rather than from its CRD effective date — closing a gap where firms that delayed their first filing effectively shortened their own review period. Second, retail communications about registered investment companies that include self-published performance rankings or comparisons would move from a prior-filing requirement to the standard 10-business-day post-use filing window, since FINRA's own data shows a relatively low noncompliance rate in that category. FINRA is also proposing to align the standard for communications referencing past recommendations more closely with the SEC's investment adviser marketing rule — a nod to firms managing both broker-dealer and RIA communications programs under one roof.
What to do between now and September 11
Nothing changes yet — this is a request for comment, not a final rule. But it's a real opportunity to weigh in before FINRA finalizes an approach that will govern how every firm supervises AI and social media content going forward. Firms doing meaningful volume in either area should think now about what a risk-based review framework would actually look like for their business, and whether it's worth submitting a comment while FINRA is still shaping the final standard.