EU AI Act · Digital Omnibus

What changed on 2 August 2026 — and what still applies

The Digital Omnibus moved several AI Act deadlines. “The AI Act is delayed” is only half true — here is precisely what shifted, and what you are still on the hook for.

Aug 2, 2026

Art. 50 transparency — unchanged

Dec 2026

New prohibitions

Dec 2027

High-risk (Annex III) postponed

By Asım Ünlü · Founder

Published Jul 14, 2026Reviewed Jul 14, 2026

Last verified · Jul 14, 2026 Last checked · 14 Jul 2026, 09:00 UTCSourced from official primary sources — digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu ↗.

In one minute

still appliesArticle 50 transparency still starts 2 August 2026. If you run a chatbot, generate or publish AI/deepfake content, or use emotion-recognition or biometric-categorisation, the disclosure and labelling duties apply on that date. This did not move.
postponedHigh-risk (Annex III) obligations were postponed to December 2027. The heavier conformity, risk-management and documentation duties for Annex III high-risk systems got more runway.
newA further set of prohibitions applies from December 2026. Some banned practices phase in on the Omnibus schedule — check whether your use case is caught.

The timeline

Every deadline, in order

2 Feb 2025in force
First prohibitions (Art. 5 unacceptable-risk practices) + AI-literacy duties took effect.
2 Aug 2025in force
General-purpose AI (GPAI) model rules + the governance / notified-body framework took effect.
2 Aug 2026still applies
Article 50 TRANSPARENCY duties apply — disclose AI chatbots, label AI-generated / deepfake content, and inform people of emotion-recognition & biometric-categorisation use. This did NOT move.
Dec 2026new
A further set of PROHIBITIONS becomes applicable under the Digital Omnibus schedule.
Dec 2027postponed
High-risk (Annex III) obligations — POSTPONED here from 2 Aug 2026 by the Digital Omnibus.

still applies

Due 2 August 2026

Article 50 is a transparency article, not a high-risk one — so the Annex III postponement did not touch it. In scope, you must broadly:

tell people when they are interacting with an AI system (e.g. a chatbot), unless it is obvious;
mark AI-generated or manipulated audio, image, video or text (incl. deepfakes) machine-readably;
disclose emotion-recognition and biometric-categorisation use to the people exposed.

postponed

Pushed to December 2027

The Annex III high-risk obligations got more runway:

risk management & data governance;
technical documentation & logging;
human oversight & conformity assessment.

The direction of travel is unchanged — build the compliance file now, not at the deadline.

Go deeper — one-time report

Omnibus Delta Report

Every deadline the EU Digital Omnibus moved — Aug 2 2026 transparency, Dec 2026 prohibitions, Dec 2027 high-risk — mapped to the exact obligations each change affects.

every date on this page, mapped to the exact obligations it moves;
an Article 50 vs Annex III “what you owe now vs later” split;
source citations for each change — audit-ready, not a summary.

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