AI
AI Act, Article 50: what changes for voice assistants
Article 50 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 calls for transparency: anyone speaking to an AI must know it. What this means for those who use voice assistants.
Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, known as the AI Act, is published on eur-lex.europa.eu. Article 50 covers transparency obligations for certain AI systems.
The principle
When a person interacts directly with an AI system, they must be told that they are speaking to a machine. The exception is where this is already obvious to a reasonably well-informed and attentive person, given the circumstances and context.
A voice assistant that answers customers' phone calls falls within this scope. In practice, it introduces itself and states clearly that it is an AI.
What to do in practice
- Have the assistant state at the start of the conversation that it is an AI.
- Use simple, unambiguous words.
- Provide a handover to a person when the customer asks for it or the situation requires it.
- Check the text of the regulation for special cases.
The dates that matter
Article 50 applies from 2 August 2026 (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Article 113, EUR-Lex).
The Digital Omnibus, Regulation (EU) 2026/1744, in force since 27 July 2026, postponed the obligations for high-risk systems: to 2 December 2027 for those under Annex III and to 2 August 2028 for those under Annex I. It did not postpone Article 50.
There is one narrow exception. For generative AI systems placed on the market before 2 August 2026, the deadline for machine-readable marking of outputs is 2 December 2026.
On 20 July 2026 the European Commission published its guidelines on Article 50.
How Filomena applies it
Filomena, Lasagnaware's AI assistant for bookings, always states that it is an AI. It does so on the phone, on WhatsApp and by SMS.
This news item is general information and does not replace legal advice.