15 days. That is all that remains before Article 50 of the EU AI Act becomes enforceable on August 2, 2026. If your micro-SaaS has a chatbot, uses AI to generate content, or deploys any AI system that interacts with EU users, you are in scope. No size exemption. No grace period.
Here is your 15-minute action plan to get compliant - no lawyers, no consultants, no enterprise software required.
Step 1: Identify your AI systems (3 minutes)
List every place your product uses AI. Common examples:
- A customer support chatbot (Intercom, Zendesk AI, custom GPT wrapper)
- AI-generated email replies or social media content
- An AI writing assistant or image generator in your product
- Any recommendation engine that presents itself as conversational
Write them down. One sentence per system. You will classify them in Step 3.
Step 2: Add AI disclosure at first interaction (2 minutes)
Article 50(1) requires that any AI system interacting with a person must disclose it is AI at the first touchpoint.
The quick fix: Add "I am an AI assistant" to your chatbot's introductory message. Place a small "AI-generated" label near content your system produces. That is literally the compliance bar for most limited-risk systems.
Document it: Take a screenshot of the disclosure and note which system it applies to. This becomes your audit trail.
Step 3: Classify each system by risk level (3 minutes)
The EU AI Act defines four risk tiers. Most micro-SaaS products fall under limited risk:
| Risk Level | Examples | What You Must Do |
|---|---|---|
| Minimal | AI spam filter, AI code completion | Nothing (but document anyway) |
| Limited | Chatbot, AI content generator, AI image tool | Transparency: disclose AI, mark content |
| High (unlikely) | AI hiring tool, AI credit scoring | Full compliance + human oversight |
| Unacceptable (banned) | Social scoring, real-time biometric surveillance | Do not deploy |
If you are not doing anything in the "High" or "Unacceptable" rows, you just need transparency. The full heavy documentation regime (Annex III) was delayed to December 2027 by the Digital Omnibus, but Article 50 was confirmed as NOT delayed.
Step 4: Label AI-generated content (4 minutes)
Article 50(2) mandates that AI-generated content be marked in machine-readable format. Article 50(4) adds visible labeling for synthetic content about real people, places, or events.
The human-review exception (important): If a human reviews and approves AI-generated content before publication, you are exempt from the visible labeling requirement under Article 50(4). But you must document the editorial workflow - who reviewed it, when, and what changes were made.
What to do today:
- Add a metadata field to your CMS or export pipeline: "was_ai_generated: true/false"
- For marketing content: keep a simple log of human reviews (spreadsheet is fine)
- If your product generates images or audio: add a visible watermark or label
Step 5: Document everything (3 minutes)
The single most important thing you can do before August 2 is write it down. A notebook, a Google Doc, or a compliance tool - the format does not matter as much as having a record.
Your documentation should cover:
- What AI system you run and what it does
- What risk level it falls under
- Where and how you disclose AI interaction
- How you mark AI-generated content (or the human-review exception you use)
- Date of last review
That is it. The whole process takes 15 minutes if you know what to do, and an afternoon if you need to figure it out as you go.
What this costs if you ignore it
Article 50 penalties: up to €15M or 3% of global annual turnover. But the real cost is invisible: EU enterprise buyers are already adding AI Act compliance questions to procurement reviews. A founder who cannot produce a simple transparency statement is losing deals they never knew they were competing for.
Vanta wants $28K/year for this
Vanta and Drata offer EU AI Act modules. They are excellent products - for companies with dedicated compliance teams. At $28K+/year, they price out the micro-SaaS founder who needs one page of documentation and a chatbot disclosure line.
Compliance Copilot covers the same requirements: AI risk classification, Article 50 checklist, transparency report generation, and gap analysis. Starting at $49/mo with a Founders Beta at $9/mo. Built for solo founders and small teams, not Fortune 500 compliance departments.
The bottom line
15 days. Four obligations. One afternoon of work max. The companies that panic and over-engineer this will waste weeks. The ones that take 15 minutes to map their systems, add a disclosure line, and write down what they do will be compliant before lunch.
Start your EU AI Act compliance at securemymvp.com/eu-ai-act →
This article is informational, not legal advice. Consult qualified counsel for compliance decisions specific to your business.