EU AI Act transparency obligations start on 2 August 2026

The EU AI Act will make new transparency duties enforceable from 2 August 2026. Article 50 requires organizations to tell people when they are directly interacting with an AI system, such as a customer-facing chatbot, and to disclose certain AI-generated or AI-manipulated content.

Providers that build or supply covered systems must design them so users are explicitly informed of AI interaction and add machine-readable marks to AI-generated or AI-manipulated content. Providers of systems placed on the market before 2 August 2026 have additional time, with machine-readable marking obligations for those legacy AI systems applying from 2 December 2026.

Deployers using third-party AI systems must inform individuals when they are exposed to emotion recognition, biometric categorization tools, deepfakes or AI-generated text on matters of public interest without meaningful human review or editorial control. Emotion recognition in workplaces or education remains prohibited, and disclosure does not override that ban. Non-compliance can lead to fines of 15 million euros or 3 % of global annual turnover, whichever is higher.