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Digital Services Act

The DSA does not contain a chatbot disclosure duty. Here is what it does contain.

Fully applicable since 17 February 2024

Last reviewed: 5 October 2026

The Digital Services Act governs intermediary services: parties that host, transmit or cache someone else's content. If you run an AI agent on your own website, generating your own output, the DSA usually does not reach you directly; your transparency duty comes from Article 50 of the AI Act. Where the DSA does change things is when your agent operates on a platform someone else runs: the platform's regime shapes what you may do there, and your own duties travel with you.

What the law requires

The Regulation has been fully applicable since 17 February 2024; duties for designated very large platforms and search engines started earlier, four months after their designation.
Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, Art. 93(2)
Terms and conditions must set out any restrictions on user content in clear, plain and unambiguous language, including the policies, procedures, tools and human review used for moderation, and any algorithmic decision-making involved.
Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, Art. 14(1)
Micro and small enterprises are exempt from several of the heavier platform duties.
Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, Art. 19
A very large online platform is one with 45 million or more average monthly active recipients in the Union; the Commission designates them and publishes the list.
Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, Art. 33(1) and 33(4)
Designated platforms run annual systemic risk assessments and submit to independent audits.
Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, Art. 34 and 37
Fines reach 6% of worldwide annual turnover, with periodic penalty payments of up to 5% of average daily worldwide turnover for continuing non-compliance.
Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, Art. 74(1) and 76(1)
Each Member State appoints a Digital Services Coordinator for intermediaries established there; the Commission supervises the designated platforms itself.
Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, Art. 49 and 56

What Audact does about it

The AI disclosure that the AI Act does require is spoken inside the call, in the position the policy for that country sets.
In controlled testing
Every governed interaction leaves a receipt, so a moderation or transparency question can be answered from the record rather than reconstructed from logs after the fact.
Working today
Where an agent runs on someone else's platform, the policy pack can carry that platform's content rules alongside the legal ones, so both are checked in the same pass. Patent-pending.
In development
Disclosure across chat channels, once chat ships.
Planned

The distinction

Which regime carries which duty.

This is the confusion the DSA generates most often, and it is worth settling in one table. The two regimes stack; neither substitutes for the other, and a compliance programme built on the wrong one leaves the actual duty untouched.

  • Question
    Must a person be told they are speaking to an AI?
    Regime
    AI Act: provider duty
    Source
    Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Art. 50(1)
  • Question
    Must synthetic output be marked machine-readably?
    Regime
    AI Act: provider duty
    Source
    Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Art. 50(2)
  • Question
    Must moderation rules and their parameters be published?
    Regime
    DSA: intermediary services
    Source
    Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, Art. 14(1)
  • Question
    Must systemic risk be assessed and audited annually?
    Regime
    DSA: designated very large platforms only
    Source
    Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, Art. 34 and 37

On someone else's platform

The platform carries its duties. You still carry yours.

If your agent answers on WhatsApp, Messenger or Instagram, the DSA obligations of that platform are the platform's: systemic risk assessment, transparency reporting, the audit. What travels with you is the platform's terms of service and the duties that attach to you as the operator of the agent, starting with the Article 50 disclosure.

In practice that means two rulebooks in one conversation: the law, and the channel. They are enforced by different parties on different timescales, and the second one can change without notice. That is an argument for holding both in the same policy layer rather than in a document and a habit.

Note

Information, not legal advice.

This page sets out the rules as we read them, with the article numbers so you can check us. It is not legal advice, and your own position depends on facts this page cannot know. Take advice from qualified counsel before you rely on it.

Questions

Does the DSA require chatbot disclosure?
No. That duty comes from Article 50 of the EU AI Act. The DSA governs intermediary services and platforms (hosting, transmitting and caching other people's content), and complying with one says nothing about the other.
Who has to comply with the DSA?
Intermediary services and online platforms established in or directed at the Union. Micro and small enterprises are exempt from several of the heavier duties, and designated very large platforms carry the full regime including systemic risk assessment and independent audit.
What if my AI runs on a very large platform?
The platform carries the platform obligations. You comply with the platform's terms and with the rules that attach to you as the operator: the AI Act disclosure first among them.
What are the maximum fines?
Up to 6% of worldwide annual turnover under Article 74(1), with periodic penalty payments of up to 5% of average daily worldwide turnover for continuing non-compliance under Article 76(1).

The duty that is actually yours

Whichever platform the conversation runs on, the disclosure duty follows the agent. Voice shows where it is spoken and how that ends up in the record.

See Governed Voice AI

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