If you run a shop, a clinic or a practice and you have any kind of AI on your website, a deadline is about to matter to you. On 2 August 2026, the remaining transparency obligations of the EU AI Act become applicable.
Most of the coverage is written for corporations with legal departments. This is the version for everyone else.
The one that catches almost everyone
If a visitor is talking to a machine, you have to tell them.
That's Article 50. Not buried in a privacy policy nobody opens — clear enough that a normal person understands it before they start typing. If you added a chat widget last year and forgot about it, that widget is now your obligation.
The same article covers two more: AI-generated or AI-edited content needs labelling, and synthetic media needs marking as artificial.
What it doesn't mean
It does not mean you need to stop using AI, hire a compliance officer, or file paperwork with Brussels. The heavy obligations in the Act are aimed at high-risk systems — credit scoring, hiring, biometrics. A shop assistant that answers questions about delivery times is not that.
There's also relief built in for smaller companies: the simplified regime now reaches businesses up to 750 employees and €150 million turnover, with lighter documentation and reduced fines.
What to do this month
- Find every AI touchpoint you have. The chat widget, the auto-reply, the product description generator you tried once.
- Disclose the chat ones. A single visible line before the conversation starts is enough.
- Label AI-written content where a reader would otherwise assume a person wrote it.
- Write down what you did. If anyone ever asks, "we checked on this date and here's what we changed" is a good answer.
Where we stand
We disclose our own. The assistant on this site says it's an AI before you type a word, and there's a plain-language note on our legal page explaining where you're talking to a machine.
We think that should be obvious rather than clever. A business that hides the fact you're talking to software has already told you what it thinks of you.
If you'd rather not work out which of your tools now need a notice, ask our digital employee — it's the sort of thing it's good at, and it'll tell you honestly if the answer is "you're fine".