AI Act enforcement begins 2 August 2026: transparency obligations for AI systems, deepfakes, and AI-generated content now apply
From 2 August 2026, the European Commission's AI Office and national authorities started actively enforcing the AI Act, including new mandatory transparency rules. Operators of chatbots and interactive AI systems must now disclose to users that they are interacting with AI; deepfakes must be labelled; and AI-generated or altered content must carry machine-readable marks. Compliance teams should verify that their AI-facing products and services implement these disclosure and marking requirements immediately, as enforcement mechanisms — including a complaints tool and a whistleblower channel — are now live.
What changed
- Enforcement of the AI Act formally commenced on 2 August 2026, with the AI Office and national authorities assuming active enforcement roles.
- New transparency obligations require chatbots and interactive AI systems to inform users they are communicating with AI, not a human.
- Deepfakes (AI-edited or AI-generated images, video, or audio) must now carry explicit labels.
- AI-generated or AI-altered content must include machine-readable marks to enable automated detection.
- The Commission published a list of over 180 organisations that signed the Code of Practice on transparency of AI-generated content, which operationalises the new transparency rules.
Who is affected
EU-wide; providers and deployers of AI systems — particularly operators of chatbots, generative AI tools, and content-creation platforms — subject to the AI Act regardless of sector or company size.
- Effective
- 2026-08-02
- Action
- Action required
- Language
- EN