If your website runs a chatbot, a virtual assistant, or any tool that replies to visitors in natural language, the EU AI Act has a specific rule for you, and it is not a problem for next year. Article 50 transparency obligations of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 apply from 2 August 2026.

What Article 50 actually requires

Article 50(1) requires that "providers shall ensure that AI systems intended to interact directly with natural persons are designed and developed in such a way that the natural persons concerned are informed that they are interacting with an AI system." In plain English: a visitor talking to your chatbot needs to know it is not a human, before or during that first interaction, not buried three clicks deep in a privacy policy.

What does not satisfy the rule

  • A line in the terms and conditions nobody reads.
  • A generic "assistant" label with no mention of AI anywhere.
  • Disclosure that only appears after the conversation has ended.

The information needs to be clear and noticeable inside the interaction itself, not just technically present somewhere on the site.

Who it applies to, and the penalty

The obligation reaches any provider or deployer serving EU users, regardless of where the business itself is based. Non-compliance with the AI Act's transparency rules can carry fines of up to EUR 15 million or 3% of worldwide annual turnover, whichever is higher.

This is general information, not legal advice. If you are unsure whether your specific chatbot setup is covered, get a legal opinion rather than guessing.

A quick check for this week

  • Open your own chatbot widget and see if it says anywhere that you are talking to an AI.
  • If it does not, add a one-line disclosure before the first reply, not just on a settings page.

AuditMerlin can check this for you. Its scan detects common chat widgets on your pages and looks for disclosure wording next to them, and three short questions tell it whether AI is actually in use, so a human-staffed live chat is not flagged by mistake. Run a free scan and the result sits next to your security and accessibility checks in the same report.