EU AI Act · Article 50(1) · Chat widgets

LiveChat and the EU AI Act: does your chat widget tell people it's AI?

Applies from 2 Aug 2026Fines up to €15M / 3% turnoverLast reviewed July 2026

LiveChat's ecosystem splits the job in two: the LiveChat widget carries human conversations, and ChatBot (its sibling product) supplies the AI that greets, qualifies, and deflects before agents step in. That split is exactly where Article 50(1) exposure hides — the visitor experiences one continuous chat window, while behind it the participant silently changes between AI and human.

The rule itself is short. Article 50(1) of the EU AI Act requires AI systems that interact directly with people to be designed so users know they're dealing with AI — no later than the first interaction, in a clear and distinguishable way. The exception for cases where it's "obvious" is narrow: a natural-language customer-service bot doesn't qualify just because it has a robot icon. A line in your terms of service doesn't satisfy it either. And it's easy to enforce, because a regulator can simply open your site and start a chat.

Who's on the hook? Responsibility is split: LiveChat carries provider-side duties for the system itself, but how the widget is configured and presented on your site is your deployment. If the disclosure setting exists and isn't enabled — or the notice is hidden — that gap is yours.

Where the disclosure lives in LiveChat

In a typical LiveChat setup, the surfaces that can carry (or fail to carry) the AI disclosure are:

The LiveChat widget greeting, which is often fired by a ChatBot story before any agent is online
The ChatBot persona's name and avatar shown while automated stories run
AI-generated story responses and fallback answers
The transfer action that hands the chat from ChatBot to a live LiveChat agent

Your LiveChat disclosure checklist

Start a chat while agents are offline and again while online — check whether both entry paths identify the AI
Name the ChatBot persona as AI explicitly; avoid reusing a human agent's name or photo
Put the AI statement in the first story message, not only in the widget's 'about' area
Review fallback and FAQ stories, which often predate your current settings
Ensure the ChatBot→agent transfer posts a visible participant-change message
Keep dated screenshots of both the bot-led and agent-led opening states

Keep proof. On a complaint, an authority will want to see that the disclosure was there and how it was designed. Keep timestamped screenshots of the first-interaction state, your widget configuration, and a record of when each was last changed — that evidence file is the difference between "we comply" and "we can show we complied."

Watch out for

The two-product architecture means two admin panels, and settings drift independently: an agency configures ChatBot at launch, the in-house team later redesigns the LiveChat widget, and the combined first-interaction experience is something nobody has looked at end-to-end since. Audit the visitor's actual journey, not each product's settings page.

Note: vendor interfaces and setting names change. This page describes where disclosure surfaces typically live in LiveChat as of July 2026 — verify the exact toggles in your own LiveChat workspace and against LiveChat's current documentation.

Common questions

When agents are online, ChatBot never fires — do we still need anything?

Check that assumption on your live routing, then disclose wherever the bot can be the first responder — offline hours, overflow, or specific pages. If ChatBot can ever open the conversation, the disclosure belongs in its first message.

Our greeting is a template from years ago — where do we even look?

In ChatBot, the opening lives in the story that fires on chat start; in LiveChat, check the widget greeting settings. If archaeology sounds risky, that's precisely what a scan-and-screenshot pass is for.

Check it in one scan.

DisclosureProof opens your site the way a regulator would, triggers your LiveChat widget, and records whether the AI disclosure actually appears — with timestamped evidence either way. Free scan at launch.

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