"It's obviously a bot"
It is the first thing anyone says when you raise Article 50. There is a real exception in the text, so the instinct is not silly. But the Commission has now told us how narrowly to read it, and it named the helpdesk chatbot as an example that does not qualify.
The exception
Article 50(1) requires the disclosure
unless this is obvious from the point of view of a natural person who is reasonably well-informed, observant and circumspect, taking into account the circumstances and the context of use.
How narrow is narrow
Commission guidelines, paragraph (45):
The exception should be interpreted restrictively given that it deprives natural persons from the protection and the right to be informed with clear and distinguishable disclosures that they are interacting with AI systems. The general awareness of consumers and other natural persons that AI systems (including chatbots and agents) exist does not imply that they recognise them in interactions.
And, in the same paragraph:
the "obviousness" exception should be limited to cases where there is almost no doubt left about the nature of the interaction for an average person from the targeted and reasonably foreseeable audience.
"Almost no doubt left" is a high bar. Note also what the first quote kills: the argument that everybody knows chatbots exist by now. General awareness that the category exists is not the same as recognising one in front of you.
The test has two steps
Paragraph (44). First, identify the audience the system is intended and reasonably likely to interact with. Second, ask how well-informed, observant and circumspect an average member of that audience is.
Two factors move the bar:
- A professional or specialised audience raises it in your favour. The guidelines accept that experts recognise AI more readily.
- A general-public audience lowers it against you. Where people with disabilities, elderly people or minors are likely to be in the audience, the expected level of information and circumspection is lower — and paragraph (34) notes this applies whenever the system is reasonably likely to interact with the general public, not only when it targets those groups.
Where the exception applies — the Commission's own examples
- Code assistance and code review chatbots available only to professional developers.
- An internal employee-facing assistant for trained staff — HR, legal, procurement, IT support.
- Clinical decision support used only by trained health professionals.
- Ambient AI in home appliances, limited to operating the appliance.
- AI non-player characters in a single-player video game.
Notice the pattern: closed audiences, trained users, or contexts where no human counterpart is even possible.
Where it does not
The guidelines' own counter-examples. The third one is the point of this article:
- An AI-powered robotic companion pet, looking highly similar to its natural equivalent […]
- AI systems embedded in immersive environments (e.g. virtual or augmented reality) using realistic avatars or voices resembling humans […]
- AI chatbots embedded in online platforms or assistance support tools (helpdesks) whereby users directly interact and receive AI outputs (e.g. replies to queries or other AI-generated content) they may perceive as human-generated.
A customer-facing support chatbot on a public website is the named example. If that is what you installed for a client, the obviousness argument is not available to you.
Why the bar keeps rising
Paragraph (45) again:
Consideration should also be given to the fact that it is becoming increasingly hard for natural persons to know whether an interaction with an AI system or an actual human being is taking place.
The better the models get, the less available this exception becomes. It is the one part of Article 50 that gets harder to rely on over time, not easier.
What to do instead
Stop arguing about the exception and spend the ten minutes. A plain sentence at the first turn, near the input field, that says the words "AI". That is what the guidelines ask for →