generates visuals, edits videos, writes copy, voices influencers, and can create content in minutes that would once have taken hours to produce.
From August 2, 2026, however, an important change is coming. New transparency obligations under Article 50 of the European AI Act will begin to apply in full. For brands and agencies, this doesn’t mean they have to stop using AI. It does mean they need to have a much clearer understanding of where AI has been used in content and when that use needs to be visible to the audience.
What is the AI Act?
The AI Act is a European regulation that creates unified rules for the use of artificial intelligence across the EU and follows a risk-based approach. The greater the potential impact AI can have on people, the stricter the rules governing its use.
For marketing, Article 50 is particularly important as it focuses on transparency. Its goal is simple: people should be able to recognise when they are interacting with AI and when they are being shown content created or significantly modified by AI.
What if you use AI in an influencer campaign?
This is where the AI Act becomes particularly relevant for brands. An influencer might use AI for brainstorming, an initial caption draft, or certain parts of production. That’s different from a situation where AI changes their voice or face, or creates a realistic scene that never actually happened. In that case, AI doesn’t just change how the content was created. It changes what the viewer sees and what they might believe.
In this context, the AI Act also works with the concept of a deepfake, meaning image, audio, or video content created or modified using AI that resembles an existing person, object, place, or event and could appear authentic or genuine. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be a completely fake video of someone saying something they never said.
An example? Hearts on the Vltava
Imagine a video by Jiří Král showing dozens of pink hearts floating along the Vltava River in Prague. Creatively, it works really well. Precisely because it combines something highly unusual with a real-life setting. The reactions in the comments are interesting too, with some people directly asking whether the video is real.
If the hearts were added to the video using AI rather than traditional post-production, we would be looking at exactly the kind of situation that needs to be assessed from an AI Act perspective.
Could the viewer perceive the final content as a real recording of something that actually happened? If so, the content may be subject to transparency requirements. This is therefore not as simple as “AI effect = always label it.” What matters is the final content, its context, and whether it could appear authentic.
The new rules also change how agencies work
At WOO, we therefore didn’t wait until content was ready for publication to start thinking about AI. The review process begins with the materials for influencer campaigns.
If we provide an influencer with an AI-generated visual, script, or caption, we first assess how AI was used and whether the resulting content falls under the disclosure requirements. If it does, we address the disclosure directly in the brief. This means the influencer knows exactly what needs to be disclosed and how the disclosure should look. We also make sure the disclosure doesn’t end up somewhere in the comments or disappear during the final video edit. After publication, we therefore check the final output as well.
But we don’t only address AI in influencer campaigns. At the agency, we have a list of tools we are allowed to use, and we primarily use AI where it helps us speed up execution. It is not there to make decisions for us or replace human work.
AI doesn’t make our work more complicated. It makes us do it better
Yes, reviewing AI-generated content adds some administration. But it doesn’t come close to outweighing the time AI can save during production.
For us, the review process is actually more of an advantage than a barrier. It forces us to have greater control over AI-generated content and allows us to guarantee that the content we put out into the world is not only creative, but also safe and transparent. And we believe that will become increasingly important in the future.
Are you dealing with AI in your influencer campaign or unsure what needs to be disclosed? Get in touch with us. Together, we’ll find a solution that works for both your brand and your creators.
