AI disclosure · EU · updated
Does the 2 December 2026 deadline apply to you?
The 2 December 2026 date comes from one sentence, added to the AI Act by Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 with effect from 27 July 2026: “Providers of AI systems, including general-purpose AI systems, generating synthetic audio, image, video or text content, that have been placed on the market before 2 August 2026 shall take the necessary steps in order to comply with Article 50(2) by 2 December 2026.” (AI Act, Art. 111(4), added by Regulation (EU) 2026/1744, Art. 1, point (39)(b), applies from 27 July 2026). It covers one duty (marking, Article 50(2)) for one group (providers of generative systems already on the EU market before 2 August 2026). The questions below set out what the text says for each answer; how they apply to your system is for you and your lawyer.
Do you provide an AI system (including a general-purpose AI system) that generates synthetic audio, images, video or text?
Yes: Article 50(2) addresses providers of such systems. Go on.
No: Article 111(4) addresses those providers only. If you use someone else's system, deployer duties such as Article 50(4) have applied since 2 August 2026, with no transitional period.
Was the system placed on the EU market before 2 August 2026?
Yes: Article 111(4) gives until 2 December 2026 to take the necessary steps to comply with Article 50(2).
No: The transitional period does not cover it: Article 50(2) has applied since it was placed on the market, and at the earliest since 2 August 2026.
Does the system only perform an assistive function for standard editing, or not substantially alter the input data?
Yes: Article 50(2) says the obligation does not apply to that extent; section 4.3 of the Commission's guidelines gives examples.
No: The marking duty applies to its outputs.
Is your question about telling people they are talking to an AI, or about labelling deepfakes or public-interest text?
Yes: Those are Articles 50(1) and 50(4). Article 111(4) does not mention them, and they have applied since 2 August 2026.
No: Article 50(2) marking is the duty with the 2 December 2026 date.
Can people in California reach your generative system?
Yes: California's AI Transparency Act has applied since 2 August 2026, with no transitional period, and since SB 1000 (30 September 2026) its covered-provider definition has no user threshold.
No: California's act does not reach it.
The definitions the questions turn on
“‘provider’ means a natural or legal person, public authority, agency or other body that develops an AI system or a general-purpose AI model or that has an AI system or a general-purpose AI model developed and places it on the market or puts the AI system into service under its own name or trademark, whether for payment or free of charge;”
“‘placing on the market’ means the first making available of an AI system or a general-purpose AI model on the Union market;”
“This 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 provided by the deployer or the semantics thereof, or where authorised by law to detect, prevent, investigate or prosecute criminal offences.”
Why only marking was deferred
“To allow sufficient time for providers of generative AI systems subject to the marking obligations laid down in Article 50(2) of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 to adapt their practices within a reasonable time without disrupting the market, it is appropriate to introduce a transitional period of four months for providers who have already placed their systems on the market before the 2 August 2026.”
See where your output stands
$ npx --allow-git=root github:agentwares/agent-disclosure output generated.pngWhat marking a file carries today: a C2PA manifest, IPTC and XMP AI fields, a declared watermark. Run it on a few outputs of each system before 2 December 2026.
A signed readiness report
The free checks print everything they find. The Article 50 readiness report ($49, one-time, no account) is the same checks for up to 10 URLs and 25 artefacts, dated and hash-signed, as PDF and JSON, to keep or hand over.
Keep a dated record of every check, and of every disclosure and marking you ship
okgate keeps every tool call your agents make in a hash-chained audit log with daily Merkle roots on a public page: 90 days on Pro ($99/month), 365 days with a compliance export on Team ($299/month).
A record of your disclosure and marking checks, kept the same way, is not built yet. I want that record
The texts, each read on 8 October 2026
- Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (the AI Act), OJ L, 12 July 2024
- Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 (Digital Omnibus on AI), OJ L, 24 July 2026
- Commission Guidelines on the transparency obligations under Article 50, C(2026) 5054 final, 20 July 2026
- California AI Transparency Act, Business and Professions Code §§ 22757–22757.6 (SB 942 of 2024, as amended by AB 853 of 2025 and SB 1000 of 2026)