EU Compliance Deadline Locks Industry Around Dual Watermark Standard

The EU AI Act enforcement begins in August 2026, requiring AI-generated content disclosure. The industry has converged on a two-layer technical standard: invisible watermarks for robustness across compression and format changes, paired with C2PA Content Credentials for tamper-resistant metadata showing creation history. Google's SynthID expansion and C2PA steering role signal major providers are coordinating now rather than fragmenting later—treating August 2026 as a forcing function for interoperable infrastructure.