New transparency rules under the EU's AI Act came into force on 2 August 2026, requiring companies to disclose when users are interacting with AI systems and to label content that has been generated or altered by AI. The rules aim to help people distinguish genuine human interactions and content from AI chatbots and deepfakes at a time when such distinctions are becoming increasingly difficult to make, allowing users to better judge how much to trust what they see online.

The obligations differ for "providers", firms that build and market AI systems, and "deployers", the platforms and services that use them, though some companies such as Meta and SpaceXAI fall into both categories. Providers must ensure AI systems clearly notify users they are dealing with AI rather than a human, unless this is obvious, and must embed machine-readable marks on synthetic audio, image, video and text; deployers must label realistic AI-generated or manipulated deepfake content. The European Commission has also published a set of optional standard icons, similar to labels already used by TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, to encourage consistency across platforms. Non-compliant companies risk fines of up to €15 million (about $17.2 million) or 3 percent of global annual turnover, though systems launched before 2 August have a grace period until 2 December 2026 to comply.