Article 13 instructions for use: what deployers must be told about a high-risk system

What does transparency to the deployer mean?

Transparency to the deployer means the deployer can understand what the system does, what it cannot do, how its output should be interpreted, and what oversight is expected. A deployer that receives only a score, without the meaning of the score, the conditions under which it is reliable, and the limits of its accuracy, cannot use the system appropriately or oversee it effectively. Article 13 therefore requires the system to be designed for interpretability by the deployer, not only for performance. The design should include explanations, confidence information where appropriate, and warnings about known limitations, in a form the deployer's staff can use in their actual workflow, not only in a technical annex.

What must the instructions contain?

Article 13 lists the information the instructions must contain, including the identity and contact details of the provider and, where applicable, the authorised representative; the characteristics, capabilities and limitations of performance, including the intended purpose, the level of accuracy, robustness and cybersecurity, and the circumstances that can affect performance; the changes to the system and its performance that have been pre-determined by the provider; the human oversight measures, including the technical measures that facilitate interpretation and the measures that enable a human to intervene or disregard the output; the expected lifetime and maintenance and care measures; and a description of the mechanisms for the deployer to collect, document and interpret feedback and to report serious incidents. Each item should be addressed specifically, not covered by a general statement that the system should be used carefully.

For the broader regulatory framework, see provider responsibilities.

How should instructions be written and delivered?

Instructions must be concise, complete, correct and clear, relevant, accessible and comprehensible to deployers. Concise does not mean short at the expense of completeness: the instructions must contain the information the deployer needs, without burying it in marketing material or technical detail that the deployer cannot use. The language should match the deployer's working language and competence, and the format should suit the deployment, whether digital, printed, or embedded in the system interface. Instructions should be versioned with the system, and updates should be communicated to deployers who already use the system, with the change and its effect on use clearly stated. A deployer should be able to find the current instructions without searching through sales material.

How do instructions relate to Article 50 transparency?

Article 13 transparency is transparency to the deployer about the system. Article 50 transparency is transparency to affected persons and users about interaction with AI and about synthetic content. The two duties are distinct and both can apply to the same system. A provider that supplies excellent deployer instructions has not thereby satisfied Article 50, and a provider that marks synthetic content has not thereby supplied deployer instructions. The record should show both duties separately, with the Article 13 instructions as the deployer-facing document and the Article 50 measures as the user-facing and content-facing measures. Consistency between the two matters: the deployer instructions should explain the Article 50 measures the deployer must operate.

What happens when instructions are incomplete or misleading?

Incomplete or misleading instructions undermine deployer oversight, monitoring and incident reporting, and can lead a deployer to use a system outside its intended purpose or beyond its capabilities. A provider that discovers that instructions are incomplete should update them, inform deployers who received the earlier version, and assess whether the gap affects conformity or requires corrective action under Article 20. Deployers should treat instructions as the authoritative description of intended use, and should raise gaps with the provider rather than filling them by assumption. The instructions should be reviewed as part of the quality management system, with feedback from deployers feeding into updates.

Continue with Article 16 provider duties.

What is not decided by this guide?

This guide explains the Article 13 duties in outline. It does not draft instructions for a specific system, does not decide what level of detail a particular deployer needs, and does not resolve conflicts between instructions and a deployer's local procedures. Those questions need the system, the deployer, the staff who will use it, and the workflow in which it will operate, read against Article 13 in the consolidated text. Instructions for consequential systems should be confirmed with the deployer and with a competent authority or legal adviser before release, and tested with the people who will actually use them.

Frequently asked questions

Continue through this AI Act cluster

• provider responsibilities
• Article 16 provider duties
• Article 11 technical documentation
• deployer responsibilities
• transparency duties for AI
• high-risk requirements overview