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In force · 17 February 2024

The DSA: when an AI channel is an intermediary, and when it is not.

In force since 17 February 2024

Last reviewed: 5 October 2026

The Digital Services Act, Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, has applied in full to all intermediary services since 17 February 2024. The duties are tiered: every intermediary reports on transparency, hosting services run a notice-and-action mechanism, online platforms carry more, and very large platforms and search engines carry most. The question that decides whether any of it reaches you is narrower than it looks: is the service an intermediary service at all?

What the law requires

The DSA has applied to all intermediary services since 17 February 2024.
Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, Art. 93(2)
An intermediary service is a mere conduit, caching or hosting service. The duties are layered on top of that definition.
Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, Art. 3(g)
Providers of intermediary services publish a report on their content moderation at least once a year.
Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, Art. 15
Hosting services run a notice-and-action mechanism and give a statement of reasons for every restriction they impose.
Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, Art. 16 and Art. 17
Online platforms that let consumers conclude distance contracts with traders must be able to trace those traders.
Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, Art. 30
Fines can reach 6% of annual worldwide turnover, with periodic penalty payments up to 5% of average daily worldwide turnover.
Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, Art. 52(3) and Art. 52(4)

What Audact does about it

A receipt is visible in the product for governed interactions, recording what an AI surface inside the platform said and what it refused.
Working today
The Article 50 disclosure spoken in the flow: a separate duty from the DSA, and one that applies whether or not the DSA does.
In controlled testing
Counts and outcomes per period, in a form that can feed a transparency report.
In development
Machine-readable marking of synthetic audio under Article 50(2) of the AI Act. It would be part of a later release; no date has been established and it is not in the product today.
Planned

Scope

Does the DSA reach a voice agent?

Usually not. The DSA governs intermediary services: services that transmit, cache or store information provided by a recipient of the service. A voice agent that answers the phone for one dental practice transmits nothing on behalf of third parties; it speaks for the business that deployed it. On the ordinary reading, that is not an intermediary service, and none of Articles 15 to 30 attach to it.

It reaches you when your client is the platform. A marketplace where an AI assistant handles buyer messages, a hosting service with an AI support surface, a messaging platform with an assistant inside it — there the AI sits within a service that is an intermediary, and the platform's duties cover what happens in that surface too.

Overlap

Two rulebooks, two different questions.

Where both apply, they ask different things. The DSA asks the platform to account for how it moderates and to give reasons for restrictions. Article 50 of the AI Act asks whoever provides the AI system to tell the person they are talking to a machine and to mark synthetic output.

One record can answer both, but the answers are not the same answer. What a transparency report needs is aggregate: volumes, categories, outcomes over a period. What Article 50 needs is per interaction: was it said, in what form, and where in the conversation.

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

Is my AI phone agent an intermediary service under the DSA?
On the ordinary reading, no. It speaks for the business that deployed it rather than transmitting or storing information for third parties. The DSA becomes relevant when the AI sits inside a service that is itself an intermediary: a marketplace, a hosting service, a messaging platform.
Does the DSA require me to say that a chat assistant is AI?
That duty comes from Article 50(1) of the AI Act, not from the DSA. Keeping them apart matters: the AI Act duty applies to the AI system wherever it runs, while the DSA duties attach to the intermediary service around it.
How high are DSA fines?
Up to 6% of annual worldwide turnover, with periodic penalty payments of up to 5% of average daily worldwide turnover, under Article 52. Enforcement sits with the Digital Services Coordinator of the Member State of establishment, and with the Commission for very large platforms and search engines.

One record, per interaction

Whether or not the DSA reaches you, what a platform and a supervisor both ask for is what happened in a given interaction. Audact records that as it runs.

See a receipt

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