The European Commission Says It Starts Enforcing AI Act Rules on August 2

On July 31, 2026, the European Commission issued a press release, IP/26/1714, headed "Commission starts enforcing AI Act rules and new transparency requirements on 2 August." From August 2, 2026, it says, the Commission's AI Office, together with national authorities, "will begin enforcing the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act." A release is not the law. Parts of the release follow, not the whole.

The Transparency Rules

On the same date, the release says, new transparency rules will start to apply, "requiring certain AI systems to tell users when they are interacting with AI and when content has been generated or altered by it." Under the new rules, "chatbots and other interactive AI systems will have to tell users they are dealing with AI, not a human." Deepfakes, which the release describes as "images, videos, or audio that have been edited or generated using AI," will have to be labeled. AI-generated or altered content "will also have to carry machine-readable marks so it can be detected more easily."

The measures, the Commission says, are intended to reduce deception and manipulation and help people make informed choices. They also "give businesses clearer obligations and a practical way to show compliance." On July 31, the date of the release, the Commission published a first list of more than 180 organizations that have signed the Code of Practice on transparency of AI-generated content.

Enforcement of the AI Act

"The AI Office can now enforce the AI Act's rules for providers of general-purpose AI (GPAI) models," the release says. These are models that can perform many different tasks and can be used in a wide range of tools and services, including AI agents. All providers of such models "must document certain information and provide it to competent authorities or downstream providers." They must also put in place a copyright policy and publish "a sufficiently detailed summary of the content used to train their models." Providers of the most advanced models, those that may pose systemic risks, must meet additional obligations.

Enforcement also begins, the release says, for transparency obligations and prohibited AI practices. The prohibitions "ban particularly harmful systems, including systems that manipulate people, exploit vulnerabilities in harmful ways, or unfairly score people in ways that threaten their rights."

Responsibility for enforcing the transparency rules and the prohibited practices "is shared across three bodies." The AI Office enforces the rules for AI systems offered by the same provider as the underlying general-purpose model, and for systems integrated into very large online platforms or search engines designated under the Digital Services Act. National competent authorities enforce the rules for other AI systems. The European Data Protection Supervisor enforces them for AI systems used by European Union institutions, bodies and agencies. "Effective enforcement will also depend on Member States ensuring that national competent authorities are properly designated and adequately resourced."

To support enforcement, the AI Office has launched tools: a Complaint Tool that natural and legal persons can use to report alleged infringements by providers of AI systems it supervises, a Whistleblower Tool for people working with providers, and a channel for downstream providers that build AI systems on general-purpose models and want to report alleged infringements by the providers of those models.

The High-Risk Rules, Postponed

Under the heading "Next steps," the release says that "The AI Omnibus postponed the application of the rules on high-risk AI systems to 2 December 2027." It also postponed the rules for high-risk AI systems integrated into regulated products to August 2, 2028.

The release gives the new dates for the high-risk rules and not the old ones. A reader holding an older plan has to check which date now applies to the system in it.