AI Vocabulary · 08 Rules & Responsibility
What is AI Labelling & Watermarks?
Marking content and interactions as AI-generated, visibly for people and invisibly in the file for machines.
AI labelling means telling people when they are dealing with AI: a note that a chat is automated, a caption that an image was generated, a disclosure under a synthetic video. Watermarks and metadata do the same for machines: invisible signals or content credentials embedded in a file that show it was AI-generated or edited. Standards such as C2PA content credentials aim to make this interoperable across tools.
The EU AI Act includes transparency duties along these lines: people should know when they interact with an AI system, providers of generative systems must mark synthetic content in a machine-readable way, and those who publish deepfakes must disclose them. Check the current application dates and details for your case.
Why it matters for you
Audiences increasingly expect honesty about AI. A clear label costs little; being caught passing off synthetic content as real can cost a lot of trust.
Own it
Set a simple house rule: which AI-assisted content you label, how, and where. Keep content credentials intact where your tools support them. Being consistently transparent is part of your brand. This entry is an overview, not legal advice.
Where it comes from
Labelling digital content grew out of the fight against misinformation. In February 2021, Adobe, Microsoft, the BBC and others founded the C2PA, which builds an open standard for "content credentials" that record how a file was made and edited. The EU AI Act later added legal transparency duties for AI-generated and manipulated content in Article 50.
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