Compliance for marketing agencies.
AI-generated content needs transparent labelling, campaign and audience data brings UK GDPR duties, and the Worker Protection Act 2024 covers your team on client sites and at events. Your clients’ exposure becomes yours.
Why this matters
Content, data, and people duties all sit with the agency.
AI-generated content (text, image, video) requires clear labelling under Article 50 when distributed to EU audiences.
Agencies are deployers and often providers, triggering obligations under both roles.
Client contracts increasingly require documented AI governance and data protection as a precondition.
Audience lists, campaign analytics, and profiling make UK GDPR documentation, including a Record of Processing Activities and a DPIA, a routine expectation.
The Worker Protection Act 2024 preventative duty covers your staff, including third-party harassment on client sites, shoots, and at events.
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The two tiers most marketing agencies businesses need.
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Essentials
AI Acceptable Use and Literacy, the Article 4 floor for agencies in scope of the EU AI Act.
- AI Acceptable Use Policy
- AI Literacy Policy
Professional
For agencies producing AI content for EU audiences: Article 50 disclosures, oversight, vendor register.
- Everything in Essentials
- Article 50 Transparency Disclosures
- Human Oversight SOP
- AI Incident Response Procedure
- Vendor AI Risk Register
FAQ
Common questions for marketing agencies.
Do we need to label every ChatGPT-written blog post?
Yes, if distributed in the EU. The Act requires content to be clearly marked as AI-generated.
What about AI-generated images in client campaigns?
Same applies. AI-generated visual content needs disclosure.
Do our clients need their own policies, or can ours cover them?
Your policy covers your operations. Clients who deploy the output also need their own, which is an opportunity: offer them Clausely as part of your service.
What did the Digital Omnibus political agreement (May 2026) actually change?
The Digital Omnibus political agreement narrowed and clarified scope in several places, eased some technical compliance burdens for general-purpose AI providers, and pushed the substantive obligations for most Annex III high-risk AI systems to December 2027. What it did not change: the Article 4 AI literacy obligations, the Article 50 transparency obligations, the prohibited-use rules, and the governance and documentation expectations placed on deployers. For UK businesses deploying AI tools, the baseline policy framework you need is essentially unchanged, and only the timetable for high-risk system technical conformity has moved.
Has the high-risk AI deadline really moved to December 2027? What still applies now?
Yes. The agreement pushes the substantive technical and conformity obligations for most Annex III high-risk AI systems to December 2027, giving providers more time to complete conformity assessments and CE marking. Transparency obligations (Article 50), AI literacy obligations (Article 4), prohibited-use rules, governance structures, and the documentation expected of deployers sit outside that extension and already apply. In practice the policy framework, Acceptable Use, AI Literacy, Article 50 disclosures, oversight SOPs and vendor registers, needs to be in place now, even if you are also a high-risk system provider working to a 2027 conformity deadline.
Does the Digital Omnibus mean we can wait until 2027 to act?
No. The Omnibus extended one specific timetable, substantive conformity for most Annex III high-risk systems, to December 2027. It did not defer the transparency, literacy, governance, or deployer documentation obligations. If your business uses AI tools (ChatGPT, Copilot, an internal copilot, an AI chatbot, AI-assisted recruitment or marketing), those obligations already apply to you rather than waiting until 2027. Waiting risks both regulatory exposure and PI questionnaire failure at renewal.
What actually counts as a “high-risk” AI system under Annex III?
Annex III lists categories of AI systems treated as high-risk because of where they are used, not because of the underlying technology. These include AI used in: biometric identification and categorisation; critical infrastructure (water, gas, electricity, transport); education and vocational training (admissions, grading, proctoring); employment (recruitment, CV screening, performance evaluation, task allocation, termination); access to essential private and public services (credit scoring, insurance pricing, benefits eligibility, emergency dispatch); law enforcement, migration and border control; and administration of justice and democratic processes. If your AI sits in any of these workflows, even if it only assists a human decision, you are likely a high-risk deployer.
Does the EU AI Act still apply to UK businesses post-Brexit?
Yes. The Act applies extraterritorially. A UK business is in scope if it places an AI system on the EU market, if the output of its AI system is used in the EU, or if it employs or serves people in the EU or EEA. Brexit did not remove EU regulatory reach over UK businesses whose AI touches EU users, staff, or customers, much as UK GDPR continues to interact with EU data protection law for cross-border processing.
What happens if our business is not compliant?
Enforcement of the EU AI Act is phased and already under way, and there is no grace period once an obligation applies to you. National regulators (in the UK, the ICO and sector regulators acting in cooperation with EU authorities) can investigate, request your documentation, and refer matters for fines. Penalties reach €15 million or 3% of global annual turnover (whichever is higher) for breaches of deployer and transparency obligations, and €35 million or 7% of global turnover for the most serious prohibited-use breaches. PI insurers are already asking for documented AI policies at renewal, so undocumented AI use can affect cover as well as expose you to enforcement.
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