The 2 December 2026 marking deadline.

Which duty applies from when

What “placed on the market” means

Placing on the market is “the first making available of an AI system or a general-purpose AI model on the Union market” (Article 3(9)), and making available means supplying it for distribution or use in the EU in the course of a commercial activity, “whether in return for payment or free of charge” (Article 3(10)). The date that counts is therefore when the system was first offered in the EU, paid or free. The Commission’s guidelines describe the rule as covering generative systems “placed on the market or put into service before 2 August 2026”.

• Being outside the EU does not change this: the AI Act applies to providers placing AI systems on the EU market whether they are established in the EU or in a third country (Article 2(1)(a)).
• The duty sits with the provider, the one who develops the system or has it developed and offers it under its own name or trademark (Article 3(3)); a business that only uses the tool is a deployer.
• Article 50(2) does not apply where a system performs an assistive function for standard editing, does not substantially alter the input data or its semantics, or is authorised by law to detect, prevent, investigate or prosecute criminal offences.

Before 2 December 2026: a checklist for providers

• List each generative feature you offer in the EU (image, video, audio, text) and the date it was first made available there.
• Mark every output in a machine-readable format, with one technique or a combination, as long as the whole solution is effective, interoperable, robust and reliable as far as technically feasible (Article 50(2); guidelines, point 72).
• Make the mark detectable: marking without available means of detection does not meet Article 50(2) (guidelines, point 70), and the result should be readable by people (point 75).
• If your model provider or a third party marks the outputs for you, check that it covers your outputs; showing compliance stays your responsibility (guidelines, point 74).
• Decide whether to sign the Code of Practice: its Section 1 asks signatories to mark images, audio and video with at least two layers, signed metadata and an imperceptible watermark, and to offer detection free of charge.
• Keep marks intact in your own pipeline: the code asks signatories not to remove existing marks.
• Write down which exception you rely on, if any, and why.
• Keep the chatbot disclosure separate: Article 50(1) has applied since 2 August 2026.

What the Commission’s guidelines expect of a technical solution

After 2 December 2026

Once the date has passed, an existing generative system no longer has the benefit of Article 111(4). A breach of the Article 50 duties can be fined up to EUR 15 million or 3 % of total worldwide annual turnover for the preceding financial year, whichever is higher (Article 99(4)(g)); for SMEs, including start-ups, the lower of the two amounts applies (Article 99(6)), and since 2026 also for small mid-cap enterprises (Article 99(6a)). National market surveillance authorities enforce Article 50, and the AI Office does so for AI systems built on a general-purpose AI model by the same provider (guidelines, note 47).