Article 50 of the EU AI Act applied from 2 August 2026. It was untouched by the Digital Omnibus, which deferred the high-risk obligations but left transparency on its original schedule.
The four duties
- Disclosure of AI interaction. Providers must ensure people are told they are dealing with an AI system, unless it is obvious.
- Marking of synthetic content. Providers must mark AI-generated audio, image, video and text in a machine-readable format, detectable as artificially generated or manipulated.
- Emotion recognition and biometric categorisation. Deployers must inform people exposed to these systems.
- Deepfakes and public-interest text. Deployers must clearly label deepfakes, and AI-generated text published to inform the public on matters of public interest.
Exemptions worth knowing
Standard editing assistance, machine-to-machine communication, closed industrial and development environments, and artistic or satirical works (limited disclosure only). Text that has undergone human editorial review and control is also carved out — a carve-out that rewards exactly the arrangement we certify.
Still open
The machine-readable marking requirement carries a grace period to 2 December 2026 for systems already on the market. That is the nearest live deadline in the Act.
Enforcement sits with national market surveillance authorities, with penalties up to EUR 15 million or 3% of worldwide annual turnover.