{"id":346,"date":"2026-10-01T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.veebiekspert.ee\/blogi\/eu-ai-act-article-50-chatbot\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T09:00:00","slug":"eu-ai-act-article-50-chatbot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.veebiekspert.ee\/en\/blog\/eu-ai-act-article-50-chatbot\/","title":{"rendered":"An AI Chatbot on Your Website: What Does Article 50 of the EU AI Act Require?"},"content":{"rendered":"
In short<\/strong>Article 50<\/strong> of the EU AI Act applies from 2 August 2026<\/strong>. If your website has an AI chatbot or assistant, users must be able to understand that they are interacting with artificial intelligence. Certain AI-generated content must also be labelled.<\/div>\n

Over the past year many businesses have added an AI assistant to their website to answer customer questions, help choose products or book appointments. The AI Act does not forbid this, but it sets transparency rules: people must know when they are talking to a machine.<\/p>\n

This article is a general overview, not legal advice. How the regulation applies depends on your situation; consult a lawyer if needed.<\/div>\n

What does Article 50 require?<\/h2>\n

Article 50 contains four transparency obligations:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Chatbots and voice assistants<\/strong> must be designed so that people are informed they are interacting with an AI system \u2013 unless this is already obvious.<\/li>\n
  2. Providers of generative AI<\/strong> (e.g. image, video or text generators) must mark generated content in a machine-readable way so that it can be detected as AI-generated.<\/li>\n
  3. Deployers of emotion recognition and biometric categorisation<\/strong> systems must inform the people exposed to them.<\/li>\n
  4. Deepfakes<\/strong> and AI-generated text on matters of public interest must be disclosed, unless the text has undergone human editorial review and someone holds editorial responsibility.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    What does this mean for a typical business website?<\/h2>\n

    An AI chatbot or customer support assistant<\/h3>\n

    This is the most common case. The simplest solution is to add a clear label to the chat window, such as \u201cI am an AI assistant\u201d or \u201cAnswered by AI\u201d, and to say it in the first message as well. It is good practice to also offer a way to reach a human, for example by email or an enquiry form.<\/p>\n

    If you have a chatbot developed for you and use it under your own name, you may be the provider<\/strong> of the system under the regulation and responsible for meeting this requirement. If you use an off-the-shelf service, the service provider should ensure the disclosure, but it is your job to check that the label is visible and has not been removed.<\/p>\n

    AI-generated images and videos<\/h3>\n

    If you use realistic AI-generated images or videos in your marketing that depict real people, places or events, they must be disclosed as AI-generated. For illustrative and clearly artistic images the requirements are lighter, but transparency is good practice anyway.<\/p>\n

    AI-assisted texts<\/h3>\n

    Ordinary marketing copy, product descriptions and blog posts that have been reviewed and edited by a human generally do not need a separate label. The requirement mainly concerns texts on matters of public interest published without human editorial review.<\/p>\n

    What changed with the Digital Omnibus adopted in July?<\/h2>\n

    The Digital Omnibus package adopted in July 2026 postponed the requirements for high-risk AI systems to December 2027<\/strong>, but the Article 50 deadline \u2013 2 August 2026 \u2013 stayed the same. Generative AI systems already on the market before 2 August were given a transition period until 2 December 2026<\/strong> to add machine-readable marking. Content created before 2 August does not need to be labelled retroactively.<\/p>\n

    What are the fines?<\/h2>\n

    Breaching the transparency obligations can lead to fines of up to \u20ac15 million or 3% of a company\u2019s worldwide annual turnover. Proportionality is taken into account for small businesses, but compliance is usually simple and inexpensive \u2013 so there is no reason to take the risk.<\/p>\n

    Checklist<\/h2>\n