AI Governance Briefing — November 5, 2025
Zeph Tech is mobilising for the EU AI Office’s code of practice on labelling AI-generated content, ensuring generative platforms can deliver machine-readable provenance and deepfake disclosures ahead of the August 2026 enforcement window.
Executive briefing: On , the European Commission convened the AI Office’s kick-off plenary to draft a code of practice for marking and labelling AI-generated content. The seven-month process will translate Article 50 transparency duties into machine-readable labelling patterns for providers and disclosure playbooks for deployers using deepfakes. Zeph Tech is standing up a dedicated workstream that connects provenance tooling, trust-and-safety review, and Article 53 EU AI Act documentation so European customers can evidence compliance when the new transparency obligations bite in August 2026.
Regulatory checkpoints
- AI-generated content labelling. Providers must ensure audio, image, video, and text outputs are detectable as synthetic through robust, interoperable watermarking or metadata signals, while deployers must surface disclosures wherever AI meaningfully informs public-interest communications.
- Deepfake governance. Deployers that publish AI-manipulated media resembling real people or events must clearly flag the artificial nature of the content and maintain records that support Attorney General-style escalation pathways across EU jurisdictions.
- EU AI Act coordination. Transparency rules under Article 50 complement high-risk and general-purpose AI obligations, demanding that Zeph Tech align labelling evidence with broader risk management and post-market monitoring dossiers.
Control alignment
- Provenance architecture. Expand content supply-chain inventories to map every model release, prompt API, and rendering service that will require machine-readable provenance, including third-party vendors feeding customer experiences.
- Policy harmonisation. Update EU product and communications policies so Article 50 disclosures dovetail with Colorado SB24-205 developer deliverables and other jurisdictional transparency statutes, avoiding contradictory customer messaging.
Detection and response priorities
- Instrument watermark verification and metadata inspection across content moderation queues; route anomalies into incident response so potential labelling failures trigger within 24 hours.
- Simulate public-interest announcement workflows that mix human and AI drafting to validate disclosure prompts, retention of explanation logs, and bilingual labelling for EU markets.
- Track AI Office working-group drafts and integrate new requirements into configuration-as-code repositories, ensuring Zeph Tech can pivot during the iterative consultation rounds through May 2026.
Enablement moves
- Launch a cross-functional labelling tiger team with legal, engineering, product marketing, and customer success leads to own the EU transparency backlog.
- Deliver playbooks for European deployers that clarify when deepfake exceptions apply, how to cite machine-readable provenance fields, and how to escalate contested disclosures.
- Stage executive readouts after each AI Office plenary so board risk committees can tie budget decisions to the Commission’s evolving code of practice milestones.