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Regulation (EU) 2024/1689

Article 50: Transparency obligations for certain AI systems

Article 50 requires that people be told when they are dealing with AI. Chatbots must disclose they are AI, synthetic audio, image, video and text must be machine readable and marked, deepfakes must be labelled, and emotion recognition and biometric categorisation must be disclosed to the people exposed to them. It applies from 2 August 2026.

Maximum penalty

Up to 15 million euro or 3 percent of worldwide annual turnover, whichever is higher.

Article 99(4)

Binds from

2 August 2026

The Article 50(2) marking duty carries a grace period to 2 December 2026 for generative systems already on the market.

Enforced by

National market surveillance authorities designated under Article 70.

Plain reading

What Article 50 actually requires

Article 50 is the provision most organisations will meet first, because it attaches to ordinary products rather than to regulated high risk ones. It has four limbs. Providers of systems that interact with people must design them so a person is informed they are interacting with an AI system, unless that is obvious. Providers of generative systems must mark synthetic output in a machine readable format that can be detected as artificially generated. Deployers of emotion recognition or biometric categorisation systems must inform the people exposed to them. Deployers who generate or manipulate a deepfake must disclose that the content is artificially generated, and deployers publishing AI generated text on matters of public interest must disclose that too. The duties sit on different parties, and a provider that ships a compliant marking scheme does not discharge the deployer's disclosure duty.

The penalty tier is Article 99(4): up to 15 million euro or 3 percent of worldwide annual turnover, whichever is higher, enforced by national market surveillance authorities.

Article 50 became applicable on 2 August 2026, the same date the Commission's general purpose model fining powers switched on. It is the most likely source of the first national fine under the Act, because compliance is visible from outside the company and a failure can be observed by anyone using the product.

The Digital Omnibus set a grace period for marking pre existing generative systems. Systems placed on the market before the transparency rules bite have until 2 December 2026 to comply with the Article 50(2) marking duty.

Nothing in Article 50 replaces the GDPR. The two companion chatbot fines on this tracker, against Replika in 2025 and Character.AI in 2026, both turned on inadequate information and unworkable age checks under data protection law. Article 50 adds a disclosure duty on top of that, and does not answer whether the underlying processing has a legal basis.

The official text, consolidated with the Digital Omnibus applied, with everything that cites it and everything it cites: Article 50 in the EU AI Act Explorer.

Enforcement

Actions citing Article 50

No tracked enforcement action expressly cites this article. The list below is the conduct that falls inside it, enforced so far under the GDPR or the Digital Services Act instead.

Answers

Questions about Article 50

Does a chatbot have to say it is AI in the EU?

Yes. From 2 August 2026, Article 50(1) requires providers of AI systems that interact directly with people to design and build them so the person is informed they are interacting with an AI system, unless that is obvious to a reasonably well informed person in the circumstances.

Do deepfakes have to be labelled under the EU AI Act?

Yes. Article 50(4) requires deployers who generate or manipulate image, audio or video content constituting a deepfake to disclose that the content has been artificially generated or manipulated. Where the content is part of an evidently artistic or satirical work, the disclosure need only be made in an appropriate way that does not hamper the display of the work.

The rest of the Act

Other enforceable provisions

Cite this page

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In a sentence
According to the GAGE EU AI Act Enforcement Tracker (as of 20 August 2026), eu ai act article 50: transparency obligations for certain ai systems.
APA
GAGE (Global Academy of Generative-AI Education). (2026). EU AI Act Article 50: Transparency obligations for certain AI systems. EU AI Act Enforcement Tracker. Retrieved 20 August 2026, from https://www.gage.academy/tools/eu-ai-act-enforcement-tracker/provisions/article-50
MLA
"EU AI Act Article 50: Transparency obligations for certain AI systems." EU AI Act Enforcement Tracker, GAGE (Global Academy of Generative-AI Education), 20 August 2026, https://www.gage.academy/tools/eu-ai-act-enforcement-tracker/provisions/article-50.
Chicago
GAGE (Global Academy of Generative-AI Education). "EU AI Act Article 50: Transparency obligations for certain AI systems." EU AI Act Enforcement Tracker. Last modified 20 August 2026. https://www.gage.academy/tools/eu-ai-act-enforcement-tracker/provisions/article-50.
Permalink
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Last updated . Every record re verified . The tracker is checked every Monday, and the same day for any action under the AI Act.

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