Do I Label AI-Generated Images on an Italian Shop?

Generally, yes. Under Article 50 of the EU AI Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689), AI-generated or AI-manipulated images, audio and video should be marked as artificially generated or manipulated. That applies to a shop trading into Italy just as it does elsewhere in the EU, because the Regulation is directly applicable.

What is covered

• Product or lifestyle imagery created wholly by an AI generator.
• Photos substantially altered by AI so they no longer show reality.
• Deep fakes — realistic media that could be mistaken for a real person or scene — which must be disclosed.

Minor, routine editing such as ordinary colour correction or cropping is a different matter from generating or materially manipulating an image with AI. The concern is media that a viewer might reasonably take to be a genuine photograph when it is not.

How to label

The disclosure should be clear. A visible caption or badge such as “Image generated by AI” — in Italian for an Italian-facing shop — is a sensible approach. The point is that a customer can tell the image is synthetic before it misleads them.

Which national authority supervises this in Italy was still being designated in 2025-2026, so check the current body when you need it — but the labelling duty itself does not wait on that. See our AI Act overview.

This article is educational, not legal advice.