EU AI Act Article 50 Transparency Obligations to Become Legally Enforceable from 2 August 2026

On August 2, 2026, the transparency obligations under Article 50 of the EU AI Act will officially become enforceable, with the European Commission’s AI Office and national competent authorities across member states launching law enforcement operations simultaneously. Article 50 requires chatbots to disclose their AI identity to users, apply machine-readable markings to synthetic content, and explicitly label deepfakes and public issue texts that have not undergone human review. The maximum penalty for violations is 15 million euros or 3% of the global annual turnover. For generative systems that were already on the market before August 2, 2026, the marking obligation under Article 50(2) can be extended until December 2; other obligations have no grace period. This article sorts out the four types of obligations, law enforcement subjects, the Digital Omnibus transition arrangements, and the developer compliance checklist.