The European Commission has opened a public consultation on draft guidelines regarding transparency obligations for artificial intelligence (AI) under the AI Act, which will apply from 2 August 2026. The regulation establishes that citizens must be informed whenever they interact with AI systems or are exposed to AI-generated or AI-manipulated content.

The draft has been published with the aim of allowing AI providers and developers, businesses, public administrations, academia, research institutions, and citizens to submit their contributions until 3 June 2026, before the final version is adopted.

The document takes into account feedback from previous consultations and aims to clarify the scope of the transparency obligations and facilitate compliance. The guidelines will be complemented by a code of practice drafted by independent experts, which will serve as a voluntary support tool to help organisations adapt to the new regulation. The final code is expected to be published in June 2026.

Under Article 50 of the AI Act, providers will be required to clearly inform individuals whenever they are interacting with an AI system, as well as to incorporate technical mechanisms enabling the identification of AI-generated or AI-manipulated content.

Furthermore, responsible organisations will have to inform citizens when they are exposed to deepfakes, AI-generated content concerning matters of public interest, and emotion recognition or biometric categorisation systems.