Direct answer
What exactly does Article 50 of the AI Act regulate? (We build or develop it ourselves)
This falls under Article 50: transparency. That obligation applies today. There are 2 exceptions you have to assess yourself.
This could go the other way
- The direct-interaction disclosure is not required where this is obvious to a reasonably well-informed, observant and circumspect person, considering circumstances and context.
- Only Article 50(2) has a transition until 2 December 2026 for systems placed on the market before 2 August 2026.
First step: Implement the applicable disclosure, marking or label.
You describe: You want the overview of the transparency obligations: which disclosure, marking or label applies to which AI scenario. Likely role: provider (you place the system on the market or into service).
This applies now
- Article 50: transparencyApplicable
- Article 4: AI literacyApplicable
Then you are the provider. The design and documentation duties sit with you: you build the requirements into the system, record how it works and what it rests on, and declare before deployment that it meets the regulation. Note that you can become a provider without building anything: substantially modifying a purchased system or placing it under your own name takes over that role.
Your first actions
- Implement the applicable disclosure, marking or label. First determine which paragraph of Article 50 applies, then implement the specific transparency measure.
- Take role- and context-specific AI literacy measures. Determine for each role, system and context which combination of instruction, guidance, practice or training is appropriate.
Record this
- Test report per touchpoint: disclosure visible, timely and accessible
- AI literacy measures record
AI articles on EU policy without substantive review
A website automatically publishes AI-generated articles about European policy. There is an editorial charter on paper, but nobody reviews the substance. Before publication only a spell check runs, and a second AI model reviews the text.
Provenance: The final Commission guidelines on Article 50 treat this case as a worked example under the transparency obligations. The document is non-binding.
An editorial charter on paper, a spell check and a second AI model do not count as human review, so without substantive fact checking by a person you must label the publication.
Commission Guidelines C(2026) 5054 final, 20.7.2026, worked examples under Article 50
AI summary of a council decision under editorial control
A news site places an AI-generated summary beneath a journalist's article about a recent town council decision. The editor in chief reads the summary on substance, checks the facts and signs off for publication.
Provenance: The final Commission guidelines on Article 50 treat this case as a worked example under the transparency obligations. The document is non-binding.
Do not rely on the editorial exception without substantive review by a competent person and a publicly identifiable holder of editorial responsibility, and note that any AI intervention after sign-off voids it.
Commission Guidelines C(2026) 5054 final, 20.7.2026, worked examples under Article 50
recruitment and selection
AI chat in recruitment and selection: what the applicant must be told
A recruiter deploys an AI chat that puts candidates through a first screening conversation after they respond to a job posting, and adds their answers to their CV. The chat introduces itself with a first name and writes in a casual conversational tone. The question is whether these applicants reasonably realise that they are talking to an AI system.
Provenance: Article 50(1) requires providers to ensure that AI systems intended to interact directly with natural persons are designed and developed in such a way that the natural persons concerned are informed that they are interacting with an AI system, unless this is obvious from the point of view of a natural person who is reasonably well-informed, observant and circumspect, taking into account the circumstances and the context of use. Article 50(5) provides that this information must be given to the natural persons concerned in a clear and distinguishable manner at the latest at the time of the first interaction, and must conform to the applicable accessibility requirements.
We read the obviousness test as a question about the audience the system actually meets, and in recruitment and selection that audience is not a trained professional group but a broad set of applicants under pressure who do not yet know the organisation. A human first name and a casual tone push that assessment the wrong way in our view, however well they convert. If you buy the chat rather than build it, Article 50(1) is by its wording addressed to the provider, while you are the one choosing the persona and the entry point; whether putting your own name on such a chat moves you into the provider role is a question Article 50 does not answer. So make the disclosure in the first message a procurement requirement and verify at delivery that it is genuinely there.
Editorial example. The rule above is in the Regulation. The situation was written by us to show how that rule plays out in this sector, and is not taken from a worked case in official guidance.
Article 50(1) and (5)
biometrics and identification
Camera at the entrance: access control versus biometric categorisation
An organisation admits staff through facial recognition at its access control gate and additionally runs a camera in the visitor area that sorts faces into age groups. Both applications run on the same biometric infrastructure and the same images. The question is which of the two requires the people involved to be actively informed.
Provenance: The Commission guidelines of 20 July 2026 count automated facial-recognition access controls among the systems that merely collect data passively and are not capable of an exchange with natural persons, and therefore do not interact within the meaning of Article 50(1). For Article 50(3) they state that, unless the use is prohibited under Article 5(1)(g), the information duty applies to any biometric categorisation system, including outside the high-risk scope, and they give classification by age or gender on the basis of biometric data as an example. Article 50(3) itself carries a further exception for systems permitted by law to detect, prevent or investigate criminal offences. As a way of informing people the guidelines describe a visible notice at each possible entrance to an exhibition room stating that facial images are captured to assign visitors to an age group, provided at the latest at the moment of first exposure.
Our reading is that you should map this per processing purpose rather than per camera: the same lens that stays outside Article 50(1) at the access control gate moves inside Article 50(3) as soon as those images place people in a category. Record for each setup what happens to the capture and who the deployer is, because that decides whether a notice belongs at the entrance. The guidelines prescribe no fixed form, but they do fix the moment: the notice has to be there before someone walks into frame, and a line in the privacy statement rarely makes that moment, in our reading.
Commission Guidelines C(2026) 5054 final, 20.7.2026, point (30) and points (104) to (108)
AI agents must disclose both their AI nature and on whose behalf they act
Point (31) of the guidelines of 20 July 2026 states that AI agents are covered by Article 50(1) if they are capable of interacting with the persons instructing them or with other natural persons in the execution of their tasks, citing as examples making bookings, managing correspondence, negotiating or concluding contracts and executing purchases. That same point requires AI agents to be designed and developed so that they disclose both their artificial nature and the person on whose behalf they are acting, given the need for transparency of the origin and of the delegation of authority and accountability for the consequences of their actions. This also applies in complex multi-agent architectures in which other agents interact directly with natural persons. Where the provider cannot reliably determine before placing on the market or putting into service whether the agent will directly interact with a natural person, the agent should be designed at the architecture level and instructed to disclose itself in every situation where it is reasonably likely to interact with a natural person, including where that person represents a legal entity. Agents should also disclose themselves to the persons instructing them at key steps such as authorisation, reporting and validation, including where the agent receives, processes or relies upon outputs generated by other AI systems rather than by a natural person, and at every new interaction. Point (63) adds that Article 50(2) may apply to AI agents where the agent takes an action whose output is AI-generated or manipulated content perceptible by natural persons, while intermediate processing steps such as reasoning and chain of thought and non-perceptible actions such as a web request or browser action fall outside that scope.
Commission Guidelines C(2026) 5054 final, Section 3.1.1 point (31) and Section 4.1.2 point (63)
Artistic or satirical work is not exempt but attenuated, and the informative character always prevails
Point (119) of the guidelines of 20 July 2026 describes an attenuated transparency obligation for deep fakes forming part of evidently artistic, creative, satirical, fictional or analogous works or programmes, where the obligation is limited to disclosure in an appropriate manner that does not hamper the display or enjoyment of the work. Point (120) describes the categories: artistic works are created for the purpose of art, including music, cinematographic works and visual arts; creative works involve creative choices, while works mainly motivated by functional or technical considerations cannot be regarded as creative; satirical works are intended to criticise society, politics, business or public figures through humoristic techniques; fictional works involve persons, objects, places, entities or events in an imaginary but verisimilitude setting; analogous works share core traits with those categories without fitting neatly into one. Point (122) states that it must be evident to the natural persons exposed to it that the content falls within one of those categories, that the categories must therefore be interpreted strictly given the lighter disclosure regime and the interests of freedom of expression and freedom of the arts and sciences, and that content whose nature is potentially unclear or ambiguous to the audience falls outside this lighter regime. Relevant factors, per that same point, are whether the content displays formats or styles characteristic of the category, the context in which it is presented, and audience expectations. That same point excludes content whose nature is exclusively informative or commercial and recognisable as such, citing news reporting, notes that advertisements or documentaries may be regarded as evidently creative or fictional in certain specific situations but not in others because the assessment is case-specific, and states that where the deep fake combines multiple characters, for example informative and creative, the informative character should always prevail and the standard labelling requirements apply. Point (123) stresses that these deep fakes are not excluded from the obligation: the deployer must still disclose the AI origin or manipulation, but may do so in an appropriate manner, and must in any case comply with Article 50(5). Point (124) states that reliance on the attenuated obligation cannot justify failing to respect the fundamental rights of individuals or the rights of rightsholders under Union intellectual property or data protection law. As examples within the categories the document cites movies featuring AI de-aged existing actors or digital replicas of deceased actors, AI-generated music in the style of existing artists, and an AI-manipulated image of an existing politician in a scene clearly meant as humorous criticism. Outside the categories the document places among others an AI-manipulated video in the style of a teleshopping channel, AI-generated images of celebrities implying involvement in activities that never happened, and an AI-manipulated video featuring a realistic synthetic influencer focused solely on displaying a sponsored product's functionalities.
Commission Guidelines C(2026) 5054 final, Section 6.1.3, points (119) to (124) and the accompanying example lists
Signing the code of practice is voluntary, but not signing means proving it yourself
The Commission Q&A on signing the Code of Practice on Transparency of AI-generated Content states that signing is voluntary and that not signing does not constitute non-compliance with the AI Act. That same Q&A states that the code has two sections, one for providers on marking AI-generated or manipulated content in machine-readable formats and the related detection mechanisms, and one for deployers on the disclosure and labelling of deep fakes and of certain AI-generated or manipulated text on matters of public interest. It further states that signatories may, subject to a positive assessment by the Commission and the AI Board, rely on the code to demonstrate compliance with their obligations under Article 50 regardless of their place of establishment, and that the deadline for inclusion in the initial list of signatories was 27 July 2026 at 18:00 CEST, with later signature remaining possible but not appearing on that initial list. The Commission guidelines of 20 July 2026 state in point (146) that providers and deployers within the scope of Article 50(2) and (4) may demonstrate compliance by adhering to a code of practice assessed as adequate under Article 50(7), and that such a code does not replace the Regulation or the guidelines but complements them as the only Union-wide recognised practical framework for that purpose. Point (147) states that compliance may also be demonstrated through other adequate means, that for signatories supervisory activities will focus on whether they have adhered to the code and implemented the measures it contains, and that opting out of sections results in losing the benefit of facilitated demonstration of compliance for that part. Point (148) states that non-signatories are expected to demonstrate through other adequate means how they comply with Article 50(2), (4) and (5) and to explain how their measures ensure compliance, for instance by carrying out a gap analysis comparing their measures with those set out in a code assessed as adequate, and that they will likely face more requests for information and for access. Point (149) states that competent authorities may take commitments implemented in line with a code assessed as adequate into account as a mitigating factor when setting the amount of fines. Point (150) states that if a code is not deemed adequate, the Commission may adopt an implementing act specifying common rules for the implementation of Article 50(2), (4) and (5).
Commission Guidelines C(2026) 5054 final, Section 8.1, points (146) to (150); Commission Q&A on signing the Code of Practice on Transparency of AI-generated Content (consulted 9 August 2026)
The deployer cannot rely on the provider's machine-readable marking
Point (117) of the guidelines of 20 July 2026 states that deployers of AI systems generating or manipulating deep fake content must clearly and distinguishably disclose that the content has been artificially created or manipulated, by labelling the output accordingly and disclosing its artificial origin. According to that same point, the labelling or disclosure methods used must be understandable and perceivable by natural persons, for example with visible or audible labels, without those persons needing to rely on any specific technical tools or performing dedicated actions. The point closes expressly by stating that deployers cannot rely on the machine-readable marking embedded in the content by the provider under Article 50(2), since those markings are not immediately clear and distinguishable for the natural persons exposed to the deep fake content. Point (12) adds that deployers involved in complex content production and distribution value chains must take proportionate measures to ensure that the labelling they have implemented under Article 50(4) is actually displayed in a clear and distinguishable manner to the targeted and foreseeable audience at the point of first exposure, for example via contractual conditions with distributing partners and via user experience settings and interfaces. Point (14) states that a legal person remains the deployer even where it involves third parties such as contractors or freelancers in the operation of the system on its behalf and under its authority, and that individual employees acting under its instructions and control are not considered separate deployers.
Commission Guidelines C(2026) 5054 final, 20.7.2026, Section 6.1.2 point (117) and Section 2.3 points (12) and (14)
General interpretation, not legal advice. Checked against Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 and the Digital Omnibus (EU) 2026/1744; the official source remains authoritative.
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