From 2 August 2026, Article 50 of the Artificial Intelligence Regulation will apply throughout the European Union. It is referred to as the obligation to label AI content, and this has led to the belief within the property sector that, from now on, any edited photograph in a property advert must always be disclosed in some way. This is not the case. The obligation does exist, but it does not apply to every type of editing, nor does it apply equally to all of them.
This text is intended for estate agents who have a retouched photograph to hand and are about to publish a property advert. It does not constitute legal advice, and where the text provides an interpretation rather than a direct quotation, this is stated within the text.
What actually changed on 2 August 2026
Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 of the European Parliament and of the Council, known as the AI Act, did not enter into force all at once. Individual sections were implemented gradually, and Article 50, which governs transparency, has applied since 2 August 2026. This follows from the general date of application set out in Article 113, from which Chapter IV - to which Article 50 belongs - is not exempt.
Two paragraphs and one further definition are key to the advertising provisions. Paragraph 2 imposes an obligation on the provider of the system. Paragraph 4 imposes an obligation on the user of the system who publishes the results. These are two different obligations on two different parties, and they are regularly conflated in the debate.
The obligation to credit the photo lies with the person who publishes it
Under Article 50(4), anyone using a system that creates or alters visual content that is a deepfake is obliged to disclose that the content has been artificially created or altered. In advertising terms: the obligation is yours, not the tool’s. The tool cannot fulfil this obligation on your behalf, as it does not publish the advert.
Under paragraph 2, the system provider has a further obligation: to mark the output in a machine-readable format so that it can be recognised as having been generated automatically. This relates to a technical marker within the file, not a sentence in the advert, and the customer has nothing to do with it.
When is a photo a deepfake and when is it not?
The whole issue hinges on what the Regulation considers to be a deepfake. The definition in Article 3(60) refers to visual content created or modified by artificial intelligence that resembles existing persons, objects, places, entities or events, and which would be falsely perceived by a person as authentic or true.
The second part of the answer is in paragraph 2, which exempts from the labelling requirement systems that perform an auxiliary function in standard processing or systems that do not substantially alter the input data. This is precisely where most of what is commonly done with advertising photographs falls.
In practical terms, the difference can be boiled down to a single question: has the editing changed what is actually there? If the edited photo shows the same room, merely with the lighting corrected, the source data has not changed substantially. If the photo shows furniture that is not actually in the flat, the photo depicts a state of affairs that does not exist, and that is precisely what the definition refers to.
Adjustment after adjustment
The following breakdown is our interpretation of the Regulation, not a quotation. The boundary between a standard modification and a substantial change is not quantified in the text of the regulation, and the first interpretative opinions on this matter are yet to be issued. Where you are in doubt, it is cheaper to seek clarification than to go to court.
You can swipe the table to the side with your finger.
| Photo editing | Tag? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Brightness, contrast, colours, sharpness | No | Standard layout; the room remains the same. |
| Aligning the verticals and the horizon | No | Correction of lens distortion, not a change in status. |
| Clearing away mess that can be tidied up | Border | It doesn’t change the property, but it does change what was there before. A sign won’t do any harm. |
| Clearing the room of furniture | Yes | It shows a condition in which the flat is not found during the viewing. |
| Virtual home staging | Yes | The furniture shown in the photo is not in the flat. This is a typical example. |
| Changing the sky, the season or the time of day | Yes | It is the way reality is portrayed that is changing, though not the building itself. |
| Sealing cracks, damp or rust | Don’t do that | This is no longer a matter of labelling. It is a statement of fact that is incorrect. |
The last line is more important than the rest of the table. The Artificial Intelligence Regulation addresses transparency, not the truthfulness of an advert. A photograph that conceals a defect is a problem even if you label it as such, and it is dealt with by regulations on consumer protection and unfair commercial practices, not Article 50.
What does not fall within the scope of Article 50 at all
This obligation applies to content created or modified by an artificial intelligence system. Where modification via the model is not possible at all, Article 50 shall not apply.
A typical example is straightening a photographed floor plan. The photographed paper can be straightened to a right angle, brightened and shadows removed by processing the image, without the need for a model. Dimensions, numbers, room names and the scale remain unchanged, as none of these are generated. In MeaReal, the floor plan is the only adjustment that cannot be carried out via the AI model, precisely because the model altered the dimensions when redrawing the plan.
How to write the label
Article 50(5) requires that the information be provided clearly and legibly at the latest upon first exposure. The Regulation does not prescribe a specific wording. For an advertisement, this means that the statement must accompany the photographs, not be hidden in the footer of the contract, and must be understandable without the use of legal jargon.
Is a single short sentence in the advert description effective, for example:
- The photographs of the living room and bedroom are renderings of the interior; the flat is being sold unfurnished.
- The furniture shown in the photographs has been digitally added and is not included in the sale.
- The photographs have been edited using artificial intelligence; the condition of the property is accurately depicted.
Look out for the watermark in the photo itself
A piece of advice that keeps cropping up in the Czech and Slovak debate is: write the word ‘visualisation’ in the photo. On the largest Czech property portal, this is risky. Sreality.cz’s advertising rules only permit a watermark in an image in the form of a logo with a maximum width of 150 px and a height of 70 px, with 30 per cent opacity, positioned 10 px from the right and bottom edges (Article 113). Immediately afterwards, Article 114 prohibits distracting text captions in photographs, and also explicitly mentions text captions in floor plans. Article 115 further prohibits framed, illustrative or otherwise highlighted photographs.
The lawyer is therefore advising something that the portal’s rules prohibit. A sensible solution is to include the label in the text of the advert and leave the photo unmarked. We will look at this issue separately, including a similar overview for Slovak portals.
What it isn’t
This is not a ban on editing photographs. Nowhere does the regulation state that an advertisement photograph must not be edited, nor that virtual items are prohibited. It states that certain types of content must be disclosed.
Nor is it necessary to write a paragraph for every photo. A single clear sentence in the advert covers the whole set of photos to which it relates.
And this isn’t something the tool provider takes care of. The provider fulfils its part by technically labelling the output; the person publishing the advert writes the text for it.
What are the risks?
The Regulation requires Member States to specify penalties and supervisory authorities, and these are being put in place gradually in each country. As at the date of publication of this text, we had not verified the specific Slovak and Czech rates, nor which authority would be responsible for enforcing the obligation under Article 50, from a primary source; therefore, we do not provide any figures here.
The practical risk, however, lies elsewhere and predates the AI Act. A buyer who, during a viewing, sees something different from what was shown in the photos will cancel the viewing, and the estate agent’s credibility with the client will suffer. This will happen regardless of whether anyone reports the matter to the authorities.
How we handle this at MeaReal
The MeaReal service (meareal.com), operated by MeaOvis s. r. o., is based on the very same principle set out in the regulation: it focuses on the space, light and sky, not the property itself. Cracks, damp patches and rust are not concealed, and where it is impossible to determine whether something is dirt or damage, it is treated as damage.
In the case of a virtual set-up and an empty room, this means that the output is a visualisation and should be labelled as such. That is why, for these edits, we provide a ready-made sentence to copy into the advert, rather than superimposing text onto the photograph, which on some platforms would be grounds for rejection.
You can try out three edited photos without a credit card, once your email address has been verified.