The significant penalties established under the AI Act are intended to ensure that the development and use of artificial intelligence respect fundamental rights, protect individuals from the risks this technology may pose, and promote the transparent and responsible use of AI. To ensure compliance with these obligations, the AI Act provides for fines of up to €35 million or 7% of a company's total worldwide annual turnover, depending on the severity and nature of the infringement.
For ecommerce businesses, these requirements are particularly important, as AI-powered tools such as chatbots, shopping assistants, intelligent search engines, and automatically generated content are becoming increasingly common. If these systems fail to comply with the AI Act's transparency obligations and other applicable requirements, your ecommerce business could face substantial penalties. In this article, we explain how much you could be fined, the most common types of non-compliance, and how to avoid them.
The AI Act establishes three levels of administrative fines. In general, the applicable fine is the higher of the fixed amount or the percentage of the company's total worldwide annual turnover.
If your ecommerce business is an SME or a startup, the AI Act applies a more favorable approach. In these cases, the fine is calculated using the lower amount between the fixed monetary penalty and the applicable percentage of worldwide annual turnover. The June 2026 update introduced through the AI Digital Omnibus partially extends this benefit to small mid-cap companies. As a result, businesses that have outgrown SME status but still operate with limited resources may also benefit from this more favorable penalty regime.
When determining the exact amount of a fine, competent authorities must also consider factors such as the nature and seriousness of the infringement, the number of individuals affected, whether the infringement was intentional or negligent, the degree of cooperation shown by the operator, and the company's size and annual turnover.
| Type of Infringement | Cases | Penalty |
| Non-compliance with prohibited AI practices (Art. 5) | Subliminal or deceptive manipulation causing harm Exploitation of vulnerabilities Social scoring Real-time remote biometric identification in public spaces (except where permitted under the AI Act) Mass scraping of facial images from the internet AI systems used to infer emotions in the workplace or educational settings Generation of non-consensual intimate material (deepfakes) or child sexual abuse material (CSAM) | Up to €35,000,000 or 7% of total worldwide annual turnover |
| Non-compliance with general obligations | Provider obligations: Failure to implement a risk management system, maintain technical documentation, carry out a conformity assessment, or affix the CE marking. Deployer obligations: Failure to use the AI system in accordance with the instructions for use, ensure appropriate human oversight, or retain operational logs. Notified body obligations: Failure to comply with independence, competence, or operational requirements when carrying out conformity assessments. Transparency obligations (Art. 50): Failure to inform individuals that they are interacting with an AI system or to properly label AI-generated content. Obligations within the AI value chain: Failure to comply with cooperation requirements between providers and third parties. Deliberate misclassification: A provider intentionally classifies an Annex III AI system as "not high-risk" in order to circumvent the requirements of the AI Act. | Up to €15,000,000 or 3% of total worldwide annual turnover |
| Provision of Incorrect Information | Providing inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading information to national authorities or notified bodies in response to a formal request. | Up to €7,500,000 or 1% of total worldwide annual turnover. |
| Periodic Penalty Payments | Refusing to submit to an on-site inspection or to provide answers during the inspection. Failing to comply with a decision of the AI Office or with commitments that have been accepted as legally binding. | Up to 5% of the average daily turnover achieved during the previous financial year. |
However, it is important to take into account the June 2026 update, which introduces a four-month transitional period, giving providers until 2 December 2026 to adapt their technical labelling practices to content that had already been published before 2 August, that is, pre-existing content.
💡Not sure which content on your ecommerce website needs to be labelled? We explain everything in detail in this article and in our LinkedIn newsletter.
What steps should I take to comply?
💡Want to find out whether your business is fully prepared to comply with the AI Act? Check it with our CHECKLIST.
Complying with Article 50 is not an easy task. That's why, at Lawwwing, we make AI Act compliance simple, automated, and hassle-free.
With AI Sentinel, we automatically scan your ecommerce website to detect which images and videos have been generated or manipulated using AI. We then display a floating widget that informs users accordingly, helping you meet the labelling requirements of Article 50. At Lawwwing, we believe that complying with the law should never compromise your ecommerce sales. That's why we designed our widget to satisfy the AI Act's labelling obligations without requiring you to place a label on every single image across your website. AI Sentinel also integrates seamlessly with the leading CMSs and ecommerce platforms, including WordPress, Shopify, and PrestaShop.
But that's not all. We also offer Vericta, an image and video verification API built on the same detection technology, with an accuracy rate of 98%. Vericta enables you to verify content before publishing it on your ecommerce website, allowing you to determine whether images or videos have been generated or modified using AI. For ecommerce businesses, it is valuable not only for complying with AI labelling requirements but also for detecting product images that have been generated or manipulated by third parties, such as suppliers, marketplaces, or users.
So don't wait any longer. If you want to avoid AI Act penalties, stay compliant with Lawwwing.
