AI labeling obligation: what applies to you from 2 August

Briefly up front: I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. I am summarising what the regulation and the statements of authorities and law firms say, with sources to read up on. If any of it affects you, ask someone who is allowed to advise.

The letter nobody expects

It arrives on a Tuesday. An envelope from a law firm you do not know. Inside: a violation you do not understand, a deadline of seven days, a bill for a few hundred euros — and a prepared form to sign.

And then what almost always happens, happens: You sign. Because it is over faster. Because the deadline is running. Because a lawyer would cost more than what is written there.

That is the moment this article is about. Because that signature is the most expensive part of the whole affair — more expensive than any fine everyone is currently talking about.

On 2 August 2026 a new obligation takes effect, and for weeks it has been written everywhere that every use of AI must now be labeled. That is not correct. And because it is not correct, the ten minutes are worth it before you do things out of caution that you do not have to do.

What actually happens on 2 August

First, an all-clear that hardly anyone includes: The large part of the AI regulation has been postponed.

The so-called Digital Omnibus, negotiated in May and finally adopted at the end of June, has pushed back the deadlines for high-risk systems:

What was postponed would not have affected you anyway: hiring software, credit scoring, border control. That is not a one-woman company.

What remains is Article 50 — and that one does indeed affect you too. But far more narrowly than you are currently reading.

Does this affect you at all? Three cases, no more

1. You have a chatbot on your website. Then visitors must be able to tell from the start that they are talking to a machine and not to you. That is one sentence in the greeting — nothing more.

2. You publish deepfakes. That is, AI-generated images, videos or audio imitating real people, places or events. If you use AI to place yourself into another picture or clone a voice, that needs labeling.

3. You publish AI texts on topics of public interest — and here comes the exception almost everything hangs on. The EU Commission writes verbatim on its own page:

“The disclosure obligation does not apply where the AI-generated text has undergone human review or editorial control and a natural or legal person holds editorial responsibility for the publication of the content.”

Translated: If you read your texts, edit them and publish them under your name, you do not have to label them. That is exactly how I work myself — what that looks like day to day, I have written up here. Not even when the first draft came from an AI.

The same authority puts it even more directly in the same place: Not all AI-generated or manipulated content has to be labeled.

And what is not at all affected: research, drafts, brainstorming, translations, evaluations — everything that stays internal and is never published.

The real danger is not the fine

Almost every post on this topic carries the same number: up to 15 million euros or 3 percent of annual turnover.

For you, that number is the least important one in the whole text. It comes from the regulation, it is addressed to authorities, and it targets corporations. No market surveillance authority in the world sends you a million-euro fine over a missing note under an Instagram picture.

The route that can actually reach you is a different one: competition law.

If the labeling obligation counts as a so-called market conduct rule, a violation is automatically also a competition violation. And then competitors and associations entitled to sue can send you cease-and-desist letters — no authority, no court, by mail.

Whether that is the case is not settled. There is no supreme-court decision on it so far. It is precisely in this grey zone that cease-and-desist letters thrive, because nobody can tell you that you are safe.

A signal I take seriously: the Wettbewerbszentrale — the institution that actually issues cease-and-desist letters in Germany — already published its own guide on labeling AI-generated content in February 2026. That is not a law-firm blog fishing for mandates. That is preparation.

If a letter arrives: five things

This is the part I wish I had had the first time I held such a letter in my hand.

1. Sign nothing. Really nothing.

The letter almost always comes with a prepared cease-and-desist declaration. It looks like a formality that settles the matter. It is the opposite.

A cease-and-desist declaration with a penalty clause is a contract. With it you enter a permanent obligation — and from then on, every future violation costs you a contractual penalty. Automatically, without a new proceeding.

Three things almost nobody considers here:

• It applies regardless of whether the claim was ever justified. You can no longer say afterwards “that was not even a violation”.
• It does not end when the law changes. The legal situation around Article 50 is in motion right now — your contract would not be.
• It binds you far beyond the occasion, often in wording broader than the original accusation.

How long exactly such a declaration binds you, and whether a modified version is the better route in a specific case, needs to be judged by someone who is allowed to. What you need to know without advice is just this one thing: Do not sign before someone has looked at it.

2. The deadline in the letter is not a law of nature

Short deadlines are a pressure tool. They are meant to stop you from asking someone. Take the day you need — that is almost always cheaper than a rushed signature.

3. Check whether the costs may be demanded at all

And here is the provision hardly anyone knows.

Section 13(4) UWG excludes the claim for reimbursement of lawyers’ fees — specifically for violations of information and labeling obligations in electronic commerce and telemedia. Which is exactly the category a missing AI label on a website falls into.

If a competitor sends you a cease-and-desist letter over this, they cannot demand their lawyers’ fees from you. And for the first letter against small businesses, the contractual penalty is additionally excluded.

Even more practical: A cease-and-desist letter must itself state that the claim for cost reimbursement is excluded. If it does not, and demands money anyway, it is formally defective — and that gives rise to a counterclaim.

Two caveats that belong here: This applies to competitors. Associations like the Wettbewerbszentrale can demand flat fees under different rules. And whether Article 50 falls under this provision in a specific case is a matter of interpretation and not decided. Both need checking in a real case, not assuming — but they also need knowing, before you pay a bill that may not even be due.

4. Look up who is writing

Not everyone is allowed to send cease-and-desist letters. It takes a genuine competitive relationship or an association entitled to sue. A complete stranger who did not like your website belongs to neither group.

5. Get someone who is allowed to — and for your country

With a cease-and-desist letter, one hour of legal review is almost always the cheapest item on the bill. If you use a legal-texts service, an initial consultation is often included. This is the moment to use it.

And one thing from my own experience, because it applies more often than you would think: My company is based in Ireland. The common German legal-texts services therefore only partly fit me. They are built on German law — and for an Irish company, a legal notice under German law is not simply “more, to be on the safe side”, but partly points to the wrong laws and the wrong authorities.

If you are based in Austria or Switzerland, you have the same problem in miniature.

The rule behind it is simple: The labeling obligation from Article 50 applies identically EU-wide, because it comes from a regulation. Everything around it is national law. Legal notice, privacy policy and above all the cease-and-desist route via competition law follow national rules. And German competition law can reach you even if you are based elsewhere, as soon as you target the German market.

So do not take the first template that ranks top on the internet. Ask someone who knows where you are based and where you sell to.

What you can do before 2 August

Briefly, because it is brief:

• Chatbot on your site? One sentence in the greeting saying that an AI is answering here.
• AI images or videos of real people or places? Label them.
• Your blog texts, newsletters, offer pages? If you read, edit and take responsibility for them: nothing to do.
• And most importantly: do not label everything as a precaution. A “created with AI” under a text you edited and take responsibility for yourself is not just unnecessary — it can itself be misleading, and it devalues your work.

On legal topics, exchanging with others facing the same question is often worth more than the tenth blog article. That is exactly what we talk about in my free community “KI — aber richtig” — the templates and workflows from my videos live there too. And if you want company instead of doing it alone: the AI Business Community offers monthly live calls, workshops and the MACHZEIT! challenge for exactly that.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to label my blog articles written with AI?

As a rule, no. According to the EU Commission, the disclosure obligation expressly does not apply where the text underwent human review or editorial control and a person holds editorial responsibility. Anyone who reads their texts, edits them and publishes them under their own name fulfils that. It is different if you publish unreviewed AI texts on topics of public interest in an automated way.

How do I label an AI image correctly?

With a clear, well-visible note on the content itself — not hidden in the legal notice and not just in the metadata. Affected are above all depictions imitating real people, places or events. The EU Commission is working on uniform symbols for this.

Does the labeling obligation also apply to private individuals?

The obligations from Article 50 are addressed to providers and deployers of AI systems, i.e. commercial activity. Purely private posting does not fall under it. The line runs where a hobby becomes a business presence — and in case of doubt, it is blurrier than you would like.

Can someone really send me a cease-and-desist letter, or is that scaremongering?

A bit of both. The route is legally possible if Article 50 counts as a market conduct rule — that is not settled. The fact that the Wettbewerbszentrale published a guide on it in February 2026 suggests the topic is being worked on. What you should take from it is not fear but preparation: check the three cases, and know what to do if mail arrives.

Am I now facing a 15-million-euro fine?

No. That sum is the legal upper limit for authorities against providers of AI systems and is aimed at companies of a completely different size. For a small business, the competition-law route is the only realistically relevant one — and there it is about cease-and-desist costs and contractual penalties, not millions.

Does this also apply if my company is not based in Germany?

The labeling obligation from Article 50 applies identically EU-wide, because it comes from a regulation. Everything around it is national law: legal notice and privacy policy follow your country of residence, while German competition law can reach you as soon as you target the German market. German legal-text templates therefore only partly fit a company based outside Germany.

Conclusion

Three sentences, if you keep only those:

The large part of the AI regulation has been postponed to the end of 2027. What remains on 2 August is Article 50 — chatbots, deepfakes, unreviewed texts on public topics.

Your edited texts do not need labeling. That is not written in some blog post; it is written at the EU Commission.

And if mail does arrive: sign nothing. The prepared declaration in the envelope is a contract that binds you longer than the law it is about.

What bothers me about this topic is not the rule. It is measured and in large parts sensible. What bothers me is that uncertainty has become a business model — and that in the end, the ones who sign are those least able to defend themselves.

Once more in closing: I am not a lawyer. This text replaces no legal advice; it is meant to give you the questions to take to one.

To read at the source: the EU Commission on labeling AI-generated content, Article 50 in full text and Section 13 UWG.