If there is a chatbot on your website — or you are thinking about adding one — there is a date worth noting: 2 August 2026. From that day, the transparency obligations of the AI Act, the European regulation on artificial intelligence, apply. The core rule is simple: an AI system that interacts with people must clearly disclose that it is an AI. No panic and no alarmism: for a small business using a chatbot purchased from a vendor, the obligations are few and manageable. Let's look at what actually changes, in plain language.
What the AI Act says about chatbots
The relevant provision is Article 50 of the AI Act, the one dedicated to transparency. The principle is common sense: anyone talking to an artificial intelligence system has the right to know it. A chatbot must therefore be designed so that the user understands they are interacting with a machine, unless that is already obvious from the context. The information must be given clearly, at the latest at the moment of the first interaction. You don't need a page-long disclaimer: you need to make sure nobody could reasonably mistake the chatbot for a person.
Provider or deployer: which one are you?
The AI Act distinguishes two roles, and knowing which one you are clarifies almost everything. The provider is whoever develops the AI system and places it on the market: most of the obligations fall on them, starting with designing the chatbot so that the transparency notice is there. The deployer is whoever uses the system in their own business: the pizzeria, the practice, the shop that puts the chatbot on its website. If your small business uses a purchased chatbot, you are a deployer, and your obligations are light. In practice:
Check that the disclosure is there. Open your chatbot the way a customer would: does it introduce itself as a virtual assistant from the very first message? If so, the main requirement is covered.
Use the tool as intended. Follow the provider's instructions for use and don't deploy the chatbot for purposes it was not designed for.
Don't hide the transparency. If the tool lets you customise the name, avatar or welcome message, don't use those options to make something non-human look human.
Choose a vendor that knows the rules. The right question before buying is a single one: "does this chatbot meet the transparency obligations of the AI Act?". Whoever builds it should be able to answer.
What a compliant chatbot looks like in practice
Imagine opening the chat on a website and reading: "Hi! I'm the virtual assistant for this shop. I can answer the most common questions; if you'd rather talk to a person, just ask me at any time." Those two sentences contain the three elements that matter: an explicit statement that it is an AI, an honest idea of what the chatbot can do, and a way out towards a human being. The handoff to a person — via email, phone or contact form — is not just good compliance practice: it is what makes a chatbot useful instead of frustrating. And there is a detail people often forget: transparency also pays off commercially. A customer who knows they are talking to a virtual assistant calibrates their expectations and trusts your website more, not less.
MAECREA chatbots are built this way by default
For us, these requirements are not a last-minute adjustment: they are how we have always designed chatbots. Every virtual assistant we build introduces itself as one from the very first message, states its limits and always offers a channel to a real person. If you want to understand the technology behind these assistants, we have explained what a RAG chatbot is and why it answers based on your content instead of making things up.
One necessary clarification: this article is informative content, not legal advice. Every business has its own specifics, and for precise questions about your company's compliance the right path is to consult a legal professional.
Want a chatbot that meets these requirements from day one, without you having to think about it? Get in touch: it costs you nothing, and we'll tell you plainly whether a virtual assistant makes sense for your business.
