Guidelines on the implementation of the transparency obligations for certain AI systems under Article 50 of the AI Act — C(2026) 5054 final, Annex

(19) According to Article 2(10) AI Act, the regulation “does not apply to obligations of deployers who are natural persons using AI systems in the course of a purely personal, non-professional activity” (9). Any activity through which natural persons gain an economic benefit on a regular basis or are otherwise involved in a professional, business, trade, occupational or freelance activity should be considered as a ‘professional’ activity. The specification of ‘purely personal’ is a qualifier of non-professional, meaning that the person should act in both a personal and a non-professional capacity to fall within the scope of the exception. Any use by natural persons acting on behalf or under the authority of a deployer acting in a professional capacity will fall within the scope of the professional deployer’s transparency obligations laid down in Article 50(3) and (4) AI Act. Examples of personal non-professional use of AI systems excluded from the scope:

- individuals using an AI system to generate deep fakes of the members of their household;

- individuals using an AI system in a personal capacity to generate text on various topics (e.g. students using AI to write their homework);

- individuals using an AI system in their personal capacity to generate deep fakes disseminated on social media;

(20) The exclusion in Article 2(10) AI Act applies only as regards the obligations of deployers when using the system for purely personal, non-professional activities. The system as such remains within the scope of the AI Act as regards the obligations of providers placing the system on the market or putting it into service and of deployers using the system for professional use. The exception is also without prejudice to the application of other relevant Union and national law. For example, the provider of the AI system used to generate deep fakes to feature on a personal Christmas card should mark those deep fakes in a machine-readable manner in accordance with the transparency obligation laid down in Article 50(2) AI Act. At the same time, the use of the system by natural persons for purely personal, non-professional activities will not be covered by the deployer obligation laid down Article 50(4) AI Act.