EU transparency obligations for certain AI systems have moved beyond their August start date into implementation, with official guidance distinguishing technical marking from disclosures made to the public. The Commission’s code-of-practice page, updated on 12 October 2026, sets out a voluntary compliance route. The underlying legal obligations remain mandatory where they apply.
The Commission’s code overview separates providers’ work on marking and detection from deployers’ duties to label deepfakes and certain AI-generated text. Joining the code is voluntary; organisations using other methods must still demonstrate adequate compliance.
A label and a machine-readable mark serve different purposes
Provider measures are intended to make synthetic or manipulated output detectable in a machine-readable format. A disclosure shown to a viewer serves a different purpose: helping that person recognise the nature of the material encountered.
The Article 50 guidelines cover direct interaction with AI, deepfakes, emotion-recognition and biometric-categorisation tools, and some text informing the public on matters of public interest. They also explain scope and exceptions, including standard editing and the treatment of human review and editorial responsibility.
The rules therefore should not be reduced to a claim that every use of AI requires the same visible label. The type of system, the output and the role of the organisation all matter.
Enforcement has more than one institution
The Commission identifies national market-surveillance authorities, the AI Office for systems under its supervision and the European Data Protection Supervisor in the relevant EU-institution context as enforcers.
AP’s July report described the enforcement build-up before the August milestone. The present implementation framework is more specific than that launch narrative: it distinguishes who must act and which transparency function their measures must fulfil.
The practical issue is now whether an organisation can show that its chosen marking or disclosure measures meet the duties that apply to its particular activity.
