Updated 12 August 2026: Article 50 has applied since 2 August 2026. This article now reflects the Commission and AI Board adequacy conclusions on the transparency Code of Practice (8 and 9 July 2026) and the Commission's final Article 50 guidelines of 20 July 2026.
The debate around the EU AI Act's Digital Omnibus has created a widespread misimpression: that compliance deadlines have been pushed back across the board. They have not, for the most part. The Omnibus, now Regulation (EU) 2026/1744, adopted (Parliament 16 June, Council 29 June 2026) and in force since 27 July 2026, defers Annex III high-risk AI systems obligations to 2 December 2027 (Annex I to 2 August 2028). Article 50's transparency and marking obligations for generative AI and AI systems that interact with people still apply from 2 August 2026, with one narrow exception: the Omnibus gives providers of generative AI systems already on the market before that date until 2 December 2026 to comply with the Article 50(2) machine-readable marking duty specifically.
What Article 50 requires
Article 50 creates four categories of obligation:
1. AI systems interacting with natural persons. Providers of AI systems designed to interact with humans (including chatbots and voice assistants) must ensure those humans are informed they are interacting with AI, at the time of first interaction. Exception: where this is obvious to a reasonably well-informed, observant and circumspect person in the circumstances, or where the system is authorised by law to detect, prevent, investigate or prosecute criminal offences, subject to safeguards, and even then the exception falls away where the system is available for the public to report a criminal offence.
2. Emotion recognition and biometric categorisation. Deployers of emotion recognition systems or AI systems that categorise individuals on the basis of biometric data must inform the persons exposed to such systems. This applies subject to the Article 5 prohibition, which bans certain biometric categorisation systems entirely.
3. Synthetic content, images, audio, video. Providers and deployers of AI systems that generate or manipulate synthetic audio, image, or video content (including deepfakes) must mark and make detectable as artificially generated or manipulated content that: portrays real people; shows real places or events; could deceive a reasonable person. Machine-readable marking is required. An explicit human-readable label is required for content that constitutes a deepfake.
4. Text on matters of public interest. Providers and deployers of AI systems that generate text published for the purpose of informing the public on matters of public interest must disclose that the text is AI-generated. This applies unless the text has undergone substantial human review and a natural person is editorially responsible for it.
The Code of Practice on Transparency of AI-generated Content, published 10 June 2026
The European Commission published the final Code of Practice on Transparency of AI-generated Content on 10 June 2026, ahead of the August deadline. The Code is voluntary: signing is not required by law, and the Commission has confirmed that not signing is not in itself non-compliance. On 8 July 2026 the Commission, and on 9 July 2026 the AI Board, concluded that the Code is adequate to facilitate the practical implementation of Article 50(2), (4) and (5), so signatories can rely on it to demonstrate compliance across the EU, although adherence is not conclusive proof of compliance. Non-signatories must show that their alternative measures are adequate, which market surveillance authorities assess case by case through gap analyses, and can expect more requests for information. Roughly 190 organisations had signed by late July 2026. On 20 July 2026 the Commission published the final version of its non-binding Guidelines on transparency obligations for providers and deployers of certain AI systems, which is the reference document national authorities use when assessing Article 50 compliance and which reads the artistic and satirical carve-out for deepfakes narrowly.
The Code establishes technical requirements for machine-readable marking: watermarking embedded in content, metadata standards including C2PA (Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity), logging facilities and fingerprinting. It covers both upstream marking (by providers, embedded at generation) and downstream labelling (by deployers, visible to audiences). Open-weight model providers are addressed: despite their exclusion from some AI Act provisions, the Code encourages structural marking encoded during training to enable downstream compliance.
What organisations need to have done by 2 August 2026
For organisations that provide or deploy AI systems within the EU (or accessible to EU users), the practical requirements are: identify every AI system that interacts with natural persons and confirm disclosure mechanisms are in place; identify every generative AI system producing synthetic content and confirm machine-readable marking is implemented; map deepfake-capable use cases and confirm human-readable labels are in place; and review third-party AI tool agreements to confirm vendors are providing marked outputs. Organisations that have not yet assessed their Article 50 exposure should treat the remaining weeks as the implementation window.
The enforcement picture is split: the European AI Office oversees general-purpose AI model providers; national market surveillance authorities in each member state oversee deployers. The AI Office's enforcement powers over general-purpose AI providers, documentation requests, model evaluations, corrective measures, and fines up to 3% of worldwide turnover or EUR 15 million, apply from 2 August 2026.
Primary sources: European Commission, AI Act (official page) | AI Act, Article 50 full text | Commission FAQ, transparency obligations under Article 50 | Commission, Code of Practice on Transparency of AI-generated Content | Commission, Code of Practice signing FAQ | AI Act, Article 101, fines for providers of general-purpose AI models | Commission, guidelines on Article 50 transparency obligations (20 July 2026) | EU AI Act, Article 50 Transparency Rules Guide
