AI Deadline | Thursday 18 June 2026
For founders and operators in AI | USA · UK · EU
🔴 Act now
August 2 is 45 days away. If your product generates AI content or operates any interface where EU users interact with something AI-powered, that date is your compliance problem. Article 50 of the AI Act hasn’t moved. The Digital Omnibus extended the high-risk system deadline to December 2027. It left Article 50 exactly where it was.
The EU AI Office published the final Code of Practice on transparency of AI-generated content on June 10. It’s the practical guide to what August 2 requires. The short version: chatbots and virtual assistants interacting with EU users must identify themselves as AI at the start of the interaction. Systems generating synthetic text, images, audio or video for EU users must mark that content in a machine-readable format. For deepfakes, a visible label is also required.
The machine-readable marking obligation - embedded C2PA metadata, invisible watermarks - lands slightly later. The Article 50(2) marking requirement for generative AI output applies from December 2, with grandfathering for systems already on the market before August. But the user-facing disclosure obligation is August 2, and that one is live in 45 days.
What to check now: does your chatbot or AI assistant tell EU users they’re talking to an AI at the start of the session? Does any deepfake or synthetic video output carry a visible label? Is your consent basis current against what you’re actually doing in those flows?
The Code of Practice is 30 pages and it’s on the Commission’s digital strategy site. Read it before July.
Action: Map every EU-facing AI interface in your product and confirm it meets Article 50’s user-disclosure requirements before August 2.
🟡 Heads up
🇪🇺 EU | High-risk classification consultation - 5 days left
