Reviewing 2024 TCPA Compliance and What to Expect from the FCC in 2025

How will the FCC’s 2025 updates to the TCPA reshape lead generation and sales strategies?

In this webinar hosted by our partner ActiveProspect, industry leaders and legal experts explore the new one-to-one consent requirements and their impact on compliance and consumer outreach. They share actionable strategies to help your businesses navigate these changes and uncover new opportunities.

Meet the speakers:

• Margaret Wise: Chief Revenue Officer at ActiveProspect, the webinar host and a leader in consent-based marketing solutions.

• Gary Kibel: Partner at Davis+Gilbert, LLP, with extensive experience in privacy and advertising law.

• Craig Ready: General Counsel at Launch Potato, focusing on regulatory compliance and risk management.

• Alexandra Krasovec: Partner at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP, specializing in TCPA compliance and litigation.

Get a recap of the discussion below and watch the full webinar here.

What you need to know about 1:1 consent

The FCC’s updated TCPA rules, taking effect on January 27, 2025, bring major changes to how businesses can communicate with consumers. At the core of these changes is the requirement for “one-to-one named consent,” which means your company must have explicit, verifiable proof that a consumer has agreed to be contacted by their specific brand.

In addition to obtaining consent, businesses must ensure their outreach meets two critical standards. Communications must be logical, meaning they align with the context of the consumer's initial interaction that prompted the consent.

They must also be topical, ensuring the outreach is relevant to the topic for which the consumer originally gave permission. Consumers should “be expecting to hear from you on the topic that you are reaching out to them for,” Wise said.

Failure to meet these standards risks more than just legal penalties; it can also erode trust with your audience. By fully understanding and adhering to these requirements, you can avoid costly mistakes and maintain strong consumer relationships.

What to do before January 27 to keep leads compliant

To get ready for the FCC's 2025 TCPA updates, businesses need to act fast to stay compliant. Start by reviewing your lead database to make sure all leads meet the "one-to-one named consent" standard. Any leads without proper consent will need to be re-qualified, and you’ll want to pay special attention to stale leads, which Krasovec said “are very ripe for TCPA claims.” 

Right now is the perfect time to update permissions for existing leads before the new rules kick in. Krasovec explained, “You need to be obtaining compliant consent for anything that you're going to use after January 27, 2025. And that means also that any leads that you have currently in your pipeline…you need to make that consent valid for after the 27th of January.” 

If you already have express written consent, Krasovec added, “You can still use that now…to ask them to give you this other consent that you’re looking for.” Acting quickly means you won’t be left with leads that you can’t legally use after the deadline.

Overcoming the biggest compliance challenges

The FCC’s new TCPA rules come with some big hurdles for businesses, especially when it comes to understanding and applying the requirements. Getting it wrong could mean legal trouble and a hit to consumer trust, so tackling these challenges head-on is critical.

One of the toughest parts is making sure your outreach is both logical and topical. Your communications need to directly match the context of the interaction that prompted the consent. Generic or overly broad permissions won’t cut it anymore. 

As Kibel put it, “When we boil down to all these rules, it’s a very, very, very simple process… Does the consumer realize why they’re being contacted? Does it make sense to them?” Failing to meet this standard doesn’t just annoy consumers—it opens you up to potential lawsuits if your outreach feels irrelevant or unclear.

Another tricky area is figuring out when and how to collect consent in complex workflows. Consent should feel natural, unavoidable, and tied directly to what the user is doing. “It’s really important to try and make it very clear and at the right point of the journey so that you can argue that this is a very effective consent,” Kibel said. For example, spreading consent prompts across the user’s experience instead of hitting them with everything at once can improve clarity and compliance.

Outdated practices, like pre-checked boxes, are also a big no-go. They don’t show active agreement and are likely to get flagged by regulators. “Stay away from pre-checked boxes, because you're gonna have a very hard time arguing that the consumer knew what they were consenting to,” Kibel said.

How to design consent journeys that work

The FCC’s new regulations demand a rethink of how your business collects consumer consent. Instead of treating consent as an afterthought, it should be seamlessly integrated into the user journey, ensuring compliance while enhancing the overall customer experience.

• Streamline consent requests: Consent prompts should appear at logical moments during the user’s interaction, reducing confusion. "It's really important to try and make it very clear and at the right point of the journey so that you can argue that this is a very effective consent because it was…logically and topically associated with what we were doing,” Kibel said. 

• Minimize consent fatigue: Overloading users with pop-ups, disclosures, and consent forms risks alienating them and potentially triggering regulatory action. “We also have the issue of consent fatigue… the more you inundate consumers with so many different disclosures, the more confused they are,” Kibel said. 

• Ensure simplicity and clarity: When designing consent workflows, consider whether they would be understandable to a less tech-savvy audience. Kibel provided a relatable perspective: "Just pretend that your 80-year-old grandmother is going through the internet and signing up for something. Is she going to understand why she's then getting a phone call later on about what she interacted with online?”

• Test and Optimize: Regularly evaluate your consent flows for clarity and effectiveness. Submitting the entire workflow for legal review can help identify areas of non-compliance or confusion. "Send me your whole flow. Don’t just send me the one page," Krasovec advised.

Navigating AI’s role in lead generation

Artificial intelligence is becoming a big player in lead generation, but it’s also under a lot of regulatory scrutiny, especially under the TCPA. The FCC has made it clear that AI-driven outreach—like pre-recorded voice calls, voice cloning, and automated messaging systems—has to follow the same consent rules as traditional methods. 

“Make no mistake, the TCPA does apply to AI technology,” Krasovec said. Even AI-generated text messages sent through automated dialing systems fall under these rules, so there’s no wiggle room for non-compliance.

On top of federal regulations, businesses also need to keep up with a growing patchwork of state AI laws. In Utah, for example, you have to let consumers know when they’re interacting with AI. Colorado is taking it even further in 2026, requiring transparency about how AI is trained and used, along with impact assessments. 

“We’re going to see many, many more states coming on board with AI laws in 2025,” Kibel said. To keep up, businesses will need to stay on top of emerging state laws and ensure they’re meeting requirements like the disclosure mandates in Utah and Colorado.

How 1:1 consent can benefit your business

The new FCC regulations provide an opportunity for businesses to improve lead quality and build trust with consumers. Stricter consent requirements naturally lead to better-quality leads, as those who opt in are more likely to engage with your outreach. 

As Kibel said, “Some said this is going to hurt small businesses because it’ll be harder to generate leads…others said it would help small businesses because now they’ll get quality leads as opposed to being inundated with messages from consumers who aren’t relevant for them.”

Although higher-quality leads may cost more upfront, they significantly reduce inefficiencies. “If you’re paying $1 a lead and one out of 20 works out, maybe it’s better to pay $5 a lead and 50% of them work out,” Kibel said. 

Margaret Wise echoed this sentiment, highlighting the operational benefits: “Maybe you’re paying more upfront, but…there’s a lot of intangible costs for your whole organization. You’re not making as many calls, you’re not processing as much. If you’re weeding some of that out…it comes out as a net positive.”

For small businesses, this shift levels the playing field. The emphasis on meaningful connections allows smaller companies to compete more effectively and focus on building trust-based relationships with genuinely interested customers.

What to expect in 2025 

The regulatory environment for lead generation is going to get tougher in 2025. Here are top predictions from the experts. 

Get ready for more lawsuits

Krasovec and Kibel expect class action lawsuits to spike as plaintiff attorneys look for gaps in how companies handle consent, revocation requests, and compliance policies. “You're going to see a lot of plaintiff's counsel coming out of the woodwork. They want to exploit gray areas,” Krasovec said.

Key trouble spots include internal do-not-call policies, e-signature challenges, and unclear interpretations of the updated TCPA rules. Companies that don’t tighten up their processes could find themselves in the crosshairs.

Stricter laws mean higher costs

State privacy laws are adding to the pressure. Maryland’s new data minimization rule, for example, limits data collection to what’s “reasonably necessary or proportionate,” and similar laws are spreading. Combined with federal rules, these create a patchwork of regulations that can drive up costs. 

Privacy expectations are rising

Consumers are paying more attention to how their data is used, and regulators are too. To stay out of trouble, businesses need to align their consent practices with stricter privacy standards. 

This means being clear, upfront, and transparent about what consumers are agreeing to. Simple, trustworthy workflows don’t just keep you compliant—they also build better relationships with your audience.

By tightening up policies, streamlining consent processes, and staying on top of new regulations, you can navigate the challenges of 2025 and stay a step ahead.