PSA for anyone building or running chatbots for clients: on Aug 2 the EU AI Act’s Article 50 becomes enforceable. Any bot that people in the EU can talk to has to tell them it’s an AI, at or before the first message, in the user’s language. Doesn’t matter where the company is based, it follows the users.
Two things about this that I think matter specifically for bot builders:
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The duty sits on whoever puts the bot in front of users, which in practice means your client gets the regulator email, and their first call after that is to whoever built the bot. If you deliver bots without a disclosure right now, that’s a conversation you’ll eventually have. Fines go up to 15M euro or 3% of turnover (SMEs get the lower cap).
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It’s also an easy upsell. “AI Act compliance included” is a line item clients say yes to in about 10 seconds right now, and the actual work is a badge plus a first message notice plus keeping a log you can hand over if anyone asks. The log part is what everyone skips and it’s the part that saves you in an audit.
US folks aren’t off the hook either. California has required bot disclosure in commercial contexts since 2019 and Utah gives you an actual safe harbor from fines if you disclose upfront.
I build in this space (disclosed.sh, one script tag that adds the disclosure plus the evidence log on top of any widget, there’s a free check at disclosed.sh/check) so bias fully disclosed. But even if you wire it up yourself: put the notice in the chat surface, not the terms page, log that it was shown, and do it before Aug 2.
Curious how agencies here are handling this, is anyone baking compliance into their bot packages yet?
submitted by /u/JarJarBuilds
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