Guides · Article 50 · EU AI Act
The watermarking deferral to 2 December 2026 — who it covers
One date in the Article 50 timeline moved this spring — for some systems. Under the AI Omnibus provisional agreement of May 2026, generative AI systems already on the market before 2 August 2026 are given until 2 December 2026 to meet the machine-readable marking requirement in Article 50(2).
The word to notice is provisional: this update describes an agreement in the legislative process as reported by the sources cited below, and its final form is a matter to confirm before relying on it. Everything else in Article 50 still applies from 2 August 2026.
What the deferral covers — and what it does not
As described, the deferral is narrow on three axes at once. It concerns the machine-readable marking duty in Article 50(2) — not the chatbot-disclosure duty in 50(1), not the emotion-recognition notice in 50(3), and not the deepfake and public-interest-text disclosures in 50(4). It reaches generative AI systems already on the market before 2 August 2026 — a system placed on the market after that date takes the marking duty from day one. And it moves one date for those systems, from 2 August to 2 December 2026.
So a team deploying a chatbot built on a long-available model still faces the 50(1) disclosure duty from August; what may shift is when that model's provider must have machine-readable output marking in place.
Provisional status — what that means practically
A provisional agreement is a stage in EU lawmaking, not the finished law. Teams we see treating this sensibly do two things: they keep planning against the 2 August 2026 date for everything except the specific marking duty the deferral names, and they have counsel confirm the deferral's final adopted form before building a timeline on it. If your marking work is already underway, the deferral is breathing room, not a reason to stop.
Questions worth answering now
- Was each generative system you rely on placed on the market before 2 August 2026, and can you evidence that?
- Are you the provider of that system (marking duty holder) or a deployer of it — and if a deployer, what do your provider's timelines mean for you?
- Which of your other Article 50 duties are untouched by the deferral and still land on 2 August 2026?
- Has counsel confirmed the deferral's adopted form before you rely on the December date?
Common questions
Does the December 2026 deferral delay the chatbot disclosure duty?
No — as reported it concerns the machine-readable marking requirement in Article 50(2) for generative AI systems already on the market before 2 August 2026. The other Article 50 duties, including the 50(1) chatbot disclosure, still apply from 2 August 2026. Confirm the final adopted terms with qualified counsel.
Sources
Drafted with AI assistance against the EUR-Lex Article 50 text; edited and fact-checked by Matthew Anglim.
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