EU AI Act Enforcement Begins, Requiring AI Transparency Labels and Copyright Policies

On 2 August 2026, the European Commission's AI Office and national authorities began enforcing the EU AI Act, with transparency rules now requiring chatbots to identify themselves as automated systems, deepfakes to carry labels, and machine-generated content to include machine-readable marks. Companies that skip these obligations face fines of up to €15 million or 3% of global annual turnover, whichever is higher.

Providers of general-purpose AI (GPAI) models face the most immediate scrutiny: they must document training data, publish summaries of content used to train their models, and maintain a copyright policy. The Commission has already named OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google as companies whose relationship with European regulators could grow more complicated under the new powers. Not everything kicks in at once — rules for high-risk AI systems are delayed until late 2027 at the earliest — but a ban on AI-generated non-consensual sexually explicit content and CSAM takes effect in December 2026.