Article 50

Explained

What it says

The EU AI Act's Article 50 is a transparency law. If you build AI or use it to create content, you have obligations.

If you build it (providers like Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, or anyone integrating their models into a product) you have to make sure AI-generated output is marked and detectable as machine-made. Chatbots have to identify themselves as AI. This applies even if the model isn't yours.

If you use it (deployers like Deutsche Bank, BlackRock, Reuters, etc) you have to label deepfakes. You have to disclose AI-generated text when it's published on matters of public interest. Any biometric or emotion recognition has to comply with GDPR. And all of this has to be clear to the person encountering it, from the very first interaction.

One thing worth knowing: Article 50 is the base. It doesn't replace any existing obligations. It adds to them.

When, and what happens if you don't comply

Enforcement begins August 2026. Fines run up to €15 million or 3% of global annual turnover. Whichever is higher.

The exception worth understanding

Deployers have to disclose AI-generated text. But there's an exception. If a human genuinely reviewed and edited the content, and a named person is editorially responsible for it, disclosure isn't required.

The obvious question is: what counts as proof? The law doesn't specify. But the Draft Code of Practice is pointing towards documented workflows and identified reviewers. Saying “a human looked at it” won't be enough. Companies need to show what the human actually did.

Both conditions have to be met. Someone shaped the work. Someone is accountable for it.

How ByHand helps

Most companies using AI in their content today have no way of showing what their people did to a document. They can assert a human reviewed it. They can't demonstrate it.

ByHand can. It follows the act of composition: keystrokes, pauses, revisions, editing behavior. And produces a record of what the human actually did. Not a claim. A record.

Article 50 asks: did a human shape this content? ByHand makes the answer something you can point to.