Article 50 of the EU AI Act — Full Transparency Requirements Explained

Article 50(1) — interacting with an AI system. Providers must ensure that AI systems intended to interact directly with people are designed and developed so that those people are informed they are interacting with an AI system — unless this is obvious from the point of view of a reasonably well-informed, observant and circumspect person, taking into account the circumstances and context of use. In practice: an AI chat widget on your site needs a clear "you're chatting with an AI" notice.

Article 50(2) — marking synthetic content. Providers of AI systems, including general-purpose AI systems, that generate synthetic audio, image, video or text must ensure the outputs are marked in a machine-readable format and detectable as artificially generated or manipulated. The technical solutions must be effective, interoperable, robust and reliable as far as technically feasible. Assistive editing features that don't substantially alter the input are carved out. Generative systems already on the market before August 2, 2026 have until December 2, 2026 to comply with this paragraph (Article 111(4), as amended by the Digital Omnibus on AI).

Article 50(4) — deep fakes and public-interest text. Deployers of an AI system that generates or manipulates image, audio or video content constituting a deep fake must disclose that the content has been artificially generated or manipulated. For evidently artistic, creative, satirical or fictional work, the disclosure can be made in a way that doesn't hamper the display or enjoyment of the work. Deployers who publish AI-generated or manipulated text to inform the public on matters of public interest must also disclose it — unless the text has undergone human review or editorial control and someone holds editorial responsibility for its publication.

Across all of these, the information must be given in a clear and distinguishable manner, at the latest at the time of the person's first interaction with or exposure to the AI system or content.

Article 50 splits its obligations between two roles defined in the AI Act. A provider (Article 3(3)) develops an AI system (or has one developed) and places it on the market or puts it into service under its own name. A deployer (Article 3(4)) uses an AI system under its own authority in a professional capacity. Articles 50(1) and 50(2) mainly bind providers; Article 50(4) binds deployers.

Most website operators are deployers — you embed a vendor's chatbot or publish images from a generation tool. But if you build and ship your own AI feature to visitors, you may be the provider too. The transparency obligations guide walks through how to tell which role you're in, and why that's different from the Act's high-risk rules.

Scope isn't limited to EU-based companies: if your AI system's output reaches people in the EU, assume Article 50 applies.

Not sure whether any of this applies to your business? Start from does Article 50 apply to you?

Article 50 has been enforceable since August 2, 2026. Non-compliance with any Article 50 transparency obligation falls under the same fine tier in Article 99(4) of the AI Act: up to €15 million or 3% of total worldwide annual turnover, whichever is higher. For SMEs, including startups, and — under Article 99(6a), added by the Digital Omnibus on AI — small mid-cap enterprises, the cap is the lower of the two amounts rather than the higher.

The fix is usually small — a line of disclosure text or a metadata attribute — which makes the exposure disproportionate to the effort of closing it. For an undisclosed chatbot, a generic notice like this one closes the gap (see the free templates below); the full report gives wording matched to your site's findings:

Start with the Article 50 compliance checklist to see what each obligation looks like on a real page, or run a free scan and let Article50.io find the gaps for you. The free scan surfaces your single most severe finding; the full €499 report covers every issue detected, each with the specific Article 50 sub-clause it falls under and a ready-to-paste fix.