Google to sign EU code on labeling AI-generated content before August deadline

Google said it will sign the European Union’s voluntary Code of Practice on Transparency of AI-Generated Content, lining up behind the bloc’s labeling rules ahead of a binding August 2, 2026 deadline.

The code, published by the EU AI Office on June 10, 2026, helps companies meet AI Act obligations to mark and label AI-generated audio, images, video and text. The binding transparency rules take effect August 2, with a transition to December 2, 2026 for systems already on the market.

The code is voluntary, but a major platform signing signals how it intends to comply as enforcement nears — and labeling AI-generated media has become a flashpoint between user clarity and disclosure fatigue.

Google’s public-policy lead for EU institutions, Karen Massin, paired the commitment with a warning. If online content becomes “flooded with overlapping AI labels and legal disclosures,” she said, people will find it “harder, not easier” to judge what they are seeing.

The signing extends a pattern: Google backed the EU’s separate General-Purpose AI Code of Practice in 2025.

Google has not posted the announcement to its own newsroom, and the EU code documents the framework rather than individual signatories, so the commitment rests on the company’s public statements for now.