European Commission Issues Guidelines for AI Act Transparency, Mandating Disclosure for AI Systems and Content
The European Commission has released guidelines for transparency obligations under Article 50 of the EU AI Act, which will become effective on August 2, 2026. These guidelines mandate that providers of AI systems must explicitly inform users when they are interacting directly with an AI system. Additionally, AI-generated or manipulated content will need to include machine-readable marks to facilitate detection. Deployers of AI systems are required to inform individuals when they are exposed to emotion recognition or biometric categorization, deepfakes, or public-interest text published without human review or editorial control. The guidelines also clarify the distinct roles of providers and deployers, define terms such as 'directly interactive systems,' 'synthetic content,' 'deepfakes,' and 'public-interest AI text,' and provide examples of what is both in-scope and out-of-scope, including an exception for standard editing. Enforcement will be handled by national market-surveillance authorities, the AI Off... 
