The European Commission has published guidelines to assist providers and those responsible for the deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) systems in complying with the transparency obligations imposed by the Artificial Intelligence Regulation, which will come into effect on August 2, 2026.
The transparency obligations will help users know when they are interacting with an AI, as well as distinguish content created or modified by AI, which will reduce the risk of deception and manipulation.
The guidelines published yesterday clarify which providers and those responsible for the deployment of AI systems must comply with the transparency obligations imposed on interactive AI systems and those related to the marking and labeling of AI-generated content.
In accordance with the Artificial Intelligence Regulation, providers will have to design AI systems that inform users when they are directly interacting with an AI, and must incorporate machine-readable tags to allow the detection of AI-generated or manipulated content.
Those responsible for the deployment of AI systems will also have to inform individuals when they are exposed to deepfakes or deep fakes, to AI-generated content related to public interest issues that lack human review and to emotion recognition systems or biometric categorization.
The guidelines explain certain concepts, provide exemptions and examples. These include what constitutes directly interactive AI systems, such as chatbots, synthetic content, including text generated partially or entirely by AI, deepfakes, and AI-generated text on matters of public interest, as well as relevant exceptions, such as standard editing, for example, spelling and grammatical correction.
Finally, the guidelines explain how compliance with the transparency obligations of the AI Act can be demonstrated, particularly through adherence to a code of good practices, which provides legal certainty and a simple and practical way to demonstrate compliance with the AI Act.
