EU AI Act · reference
What the AI Act actually says about AI-assisted content.
Most of what circulates about this regulation is second-hand and some of it is simply wrong — including, right now, which parts were delayed. Every date, article number and quotation below was read from the Official Journal text, and you can check each one against the source.
Primary sources last read 25 July 2026
The short answer
Publishing AI-assisted marketing copy is not, by itself, a labelling obligation.
→
What Article 50(4) covers
The duty attaches to a specific category of text, and it carries an explicit exception. Both halves matter, and the second half is the one most summaries drop.
Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Article 50(4)
"Deployers of an AI system that generates or manipulates text which is published with the purpose of informing the public on matters of public interest shall disclose that the text has been artificially generated or manipulated. This obligation shall not apply … where the AI-generated content has undergone a process of human review or editorial control and where a natural or legal person holds editorial responsibility for the publication of the content."
Two conditions therefore have to hold before the duty bites: the text must be published to inform the public on a matter of public interest, and it must not have gone through human review with someone holding editorial responsibility. A reviewed and signed-off company article is a poor fit for both.
Timeline
What was delayed in July 2026 — and what was not.
Regulation (EU) 2026/1744, the Digital Omnibus on AI, was adopted on 8 July 2026, published on 24 July 2026 and enters into force on the third day after publication. It amends the AI Act's application dates. It did not touch the general application date, and it did not delay Article 50.
The two rows marked in grey are the ones the July 2026 amendment moved, from 2 August 2026 out to 2027 and 2028. The transparency obligations in Article 50 were left where they were. If you have read that "the AI Act was postponed", that is the part that was postponed — and it is not the part that governs published text.
The other obligation
Machine-readable marking sits with whoever provides the generating system.
Article 50(2) requires providers of AI systems that generate synthetic audio, image, video or text to mark those outputs in a machine-readable format, detectable as artificially generated. It does not apply where the system performs an assistive function for standard editing, or does not substantially alter the input data or its semantics.
Under the new Article 111(4), systems placed on the market before 2 August 2026 have until 2 December 2026 to comply.
We deliberately do not tell you on this page whether that obligation lands on us, on the model developers we route through, or on both. The allocation between model provider and integrator is genuinely unsettled, and a marketing page is the wrong place to resolve a question your counsel should answer.
Check it yourself
Primary sources
Both texts are freely readable. If anything on this page disagrees with them, the Official Journal is right and we are wrong — tell us and we will correct it.
Questions people actually ask
Generally no. The disclosure duty in Article 50(4) attaches to text "published with the purpose of informing the public on matters of public interest" — not to all published text. And even where it applies, it does not apply where the content "has undergone a process of human review or editorial control and where a natural or legal person holds editorial responsibility for the publication of the content". Ordinary marketing copy that a person reviews and takes responsibility for is not the target of that provision.
Parts of it. Regulation (EU) 2026/1744, in force 27 July 2026, pushed the high-risk obligations in Chapter III back to 2 December 2027 and 2 August 2028. The general application date of 2 August 2026 was not changed, and Article 50 was not delayed. Most commentary reports this the other way round.
Article 50(2) requires providers of AI systems generating synthetic audio, image, video or text to mark the outputs in a machine-readable format, detectable as artificially generated. It does not apply where the system performs an assistive function for standard editing, or does not substantially alter the input data or its semantics. Systems placed on the market before 2 August 2026 have until 2 December 2026 under the new Article 111(4).
No. Drafts wait for an explicit human approval before they can be published, and the person approving holds editorial responsibility for what goes out. That is a product decision we made before the regulation mattered commercially, and it maps directly onto the Article 50(4) exception.
No. It is a factual summary of primary sources, written so you can check every claim against the Official Journal yourself. How the Act applies to your particular business is a question for your counsel.
This page is a factual summary of primary legislation, not legal advice. It reflects the Official Journal text as read on 25 July 2026.
Publishing with a person in the loop.
Nothing we generate reaches the web without a human approving it. See how the pipeline works on your own domain.
✓ Free✓ No card✓ Two minutes✓ GDPR
