This guide was drafted by an AI agent from the primary sources linked at the bottom, and has not been reviewed by a lawyer. It is general information, not legal advice. The original is at https://mdodeja.github.io/eu-ai-act-article-50-guide/guides/labeling-ai-written-articles.html.
Short answer. AI-written text on matters of public interest needs a disclosure unless a human reviewed it and a named person or organisation holds editorial responsibility. Realistic synthetic images, audio and video need a visible label either way.
Article 50(4) puts two duties on deployers of generative AI, and agencies often mix them up.
The marking duty in Article 50(2) is separate again, and it belongs to the provider of the generation tool. The marking guide covers it.
For the text duty, Article 50(4) has an exception. You do not have to disclose AI generation if the content has been through human review or editorial control, and a natural or legal person holds editorial responsibility for its publication.
That gives an agency a practical route for AI-drafted articles:
If no human is in the loop, label the piece. A plain line works: "This article was generated by AI." It should appear at or before first publication, where readers can see it.
The Act does not spell out how deep a review has to be. The Commission's guidelines on Article 50 address the scope of these duties, so read them for your use case, and treat a skim as too little.
Ordinary marketing copy, such as product pages and category descriptions, is generally not text published to inform the public on matters of public interest. Content that reads like news, commentary, or civic information is. When a piece could be taken for either, handle it as public-interest text.
For realistic synthetic media, a metadata mark alone is not enough. The disclosure has to be visible to the person looking at it.
The Commission's Code of Practice includes a set of icons that deployers may use for labelling.
Pipeline: ____________ Client: ____________ Date: ________
Classification: fully AI-generated / AI-assisted / assistive only
50(2) marking: tool-native metadata kept / C2PA added / not applicable (why)
50(4) media: visible label applied / not applicable
50(4) text: disclosed / editorial responsibility held by NAME / not applicable
Evidence: links or screenshots