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Guide

How to disclose AI product images in WooCommerce

If your shop sells with AI-generated or AI-edited product photos, the EU AI Act's Article 50 may ask you to disclose them, and buyers increasingly expect that honesty. Here's how to add a clear "AI Generated" badge across your WooCommerce store, on any theme, with the provenance embedded in the file.

A shop assistant attaching an AI-disclosure tag to a product, with a badged product photo on the counter

Practical guide · last reviewed August 2026

01Summary3 points

The short version

  • A shop showing AI product imagery to EU customers is a deployer under Article 50, and has had to disclose it since 2 August 2026.
  • Flag a product image as AI and AIM Transparency puts the badge on it, embeds IPTC/XMP metadata, and adds JSON-LD.
  • Every product image WordPress renders is covered free, the single-product gallery included. Pro covers themes that replace that gallery with their own markup.

02The caseArticle 50(4)

Why AI product photos are their own case

For a shop, AI imagery isn't a side issue: it's on the pages where money changes hands. Two things stack up:

  • Compliance. Publishing AI-generated or AI-manipulated product visuals to an EU audience is exactly the deployer disclosure Article 50(4) is about. (See the full EU AI Act guide.)
  • Trust. An AI product photo a customer later feels was passed off as real invites returns, chargebacks and bad reviews. A small, honest "AI Generated" mark does the opposite: it signals you're upfront.

Disclosing AI product imagery is a trust feature, not just a legal checkbox.

03Coverage4 store surfaces

Where the badge shows across your store

Once an image is flagged, AIM Transparency renders the badge everywhere WooCommerce puts that image:

Store surfaceCoverage
Shop / catalogue grid thumbnailsFree
Category & archive thumbnailsFree
Product description / content imagesFree
Single-product page gallery (main + gallery images)Free
Cart, mini-cart and related productsFree
Custom themes that replace the gallery templatePro

Why the split? WooCommerce builds its gallery with WordPress's own image functions, so the free plugin reaches it like any other image. What it cannot reach is a theme that throws that template away and writes its own markup. Pro adds that gallery coverage directly. Everything else your theme renders through standard WordPress is badged for free.

04Free vs ProWhat sits in each

Free vs Pro for a WooCommerce store

  • Free covers the whole shop: manual flagging, the badge on shop and category thumbnails, content images and the single-product gallery, IPTC/XMP embedding for every image format, on any host, JSON-LD, and the CSV compliance export.
  • Pro is built for a real catalogue: automatic flagging on upload (essential when you add products in bulk), a library scanner that re-embeds stripped marks and adopts provenance already declared inside your existing images, formatted compliance reports, and a gallery-cover fallback for the rare theme that replaces WooCommerce's own gallery markup.

05The walkthrough5 steps

Step by step

  1. Install the plugin. Add AIM Transparency (free) from Plugins → Add New. That badges every product image on its own. Add AIM Transparency Pro when you want flagging to happen automatically on upload.
  2. Flag your AI product images. In Media → Library, mark each AI product photo as AI-generated or AI-edited. Bulk-select for a large catalogue, or let Pro flag them automatically on upload.
  3. The badge renders storewide. Visit your shop grid, a category, and a product page: the "AI Generated" badge appears on every flagged image, single-product gallery included.
  4. Provenance is embedded. The IPTC/XMP DigitalSourceType is written into the file and schema.org JSON-LD is added, without disturbing WooCommerce's own Product structured data. (More in What IPTC DigitalSourceType actually is.)
  5. Keep the record. Export a CSV of every disclosed product image for your compliance file.

06ConversionsThe honest answer

Will a badge hurt conversions?

The honest answer: a tasteful disclosure helps more than it hurts. You're in control of it, and transparency is on your side:

  • You style it. Badge Studio lets you set the shape, colours and position: a small, on-brand mark in a corner, not a scary warning.
  • Disclosed beats discovered. Shoppers forgive AI imagery that's labelled; they punish AI imagery that felt hidden. Upfront disclosure lowers return and dispute risk.
  • It's the compliant default anyway. The badge has not been optional for AI product imagery in the EU since 2 August 2026. Doing it well is cheaper than doing it under pressure.

07Questions3 answered

FAQ

Do I need Pro just for WooCommerce?
For badging, no. Shop and category thumbnails, content images, related products, the cart and the single-product gallery are all badged by the free plugin, because WooCommerce renders them through WordPress’s own image functions. Pro earns its place on a real catalogue through automatic flagging on upload and the library scanner, and it covers the edge case of a theme that replaces the gallery template.
Will it affect my product's SEO / structured data?
No. It adds an ImageObject AI-provenance signal alongside your existing WooCommerce Product schema; it doesn't replace or break it. The badge is a front-end overlay; your image's pixels are never altered (the disclosure metadata rides inside the file's XMP).
What about a large catalogue?
Use Pro's automatic flagging (it reads Content Credentials from tools like DALL·E and Firefly, and the IPTC DigitalSourceType tag Midjourney writes, on upload) so new AI products are disclosed without manual tagging, and the strip-guard scanner keeps the mark in place if an image optimiser runs.

08Keep reading9 guides

Each one stands on its own, in plain English, with the exact steps for a WordPress site.

A studio assistant reviewing a row of framed prints, some marked with an AI badgeThe law

The EU AI Act and WordPress (Article 50)

Who Article 50 covers, the 2 August 2026 deadline, the penalties, and exactly what a WordPress site owner must do, in plain English.

Read guide A studio assistant placing AI-disclosure badges on a wall of framed imagesThe how-to

How to label AI images in WordPress

A step-by-step walkthrough: install the plugin, flag an image from the Media Library, and get the badge, embedded metadata and JSON-LD automatically.

Read guide A studio assistant pressing a provenance seal onto a photo print beside a card catalogueThe metadata

What IPTC DigitalSourceType actually is

The machine-readable tag behind “AI-generated”: what the IPTC DigitalSourceType vocabulary means, the values AIM Transparency writes for AI and human provenance alike, and why it future-proofs your images.

Read guide A not-human laying a small mint disclosure strip along the top edge of a page of writingWritten text

How to disclose AI-written text in WordPress

The half of Article 50(4) nobody quotes. Whether the text duty reaches your site at all, how to record it per post, and why human review on its own is not the exemption.

Read guide A not-human attaching a small glowing label to the corner of a chat windowChatbots

How to disclose an AI chatbot on WordPress

Article 50(1) is the other half of the law: if visitors interact with an AI, you have to tell them. Where the notice belongs, and how to find widgets already running.

Read guide Five different not-human characters each tagging their own framed photographLanguages

Your AI disclosure has to be in a language visitors read

Article 50 asks you to inform the person. An English badge on a Polish shop does not. How disclosure works across 22 EU languages, and where the wording comes from.

Read guide A not-human joining two wooden panels with a single glowing mint cordFor developers

Show an AI disclosure automatically with WordPress hooks

One filter, one condition, one call to do_shortcode. Copy-paste recipes for categories, custom fields, WooCommerce and block themes.

Read guide A not-human in a sunlit workshop feeding a photograph through a hand press, with three progressively smaller copies emerging, each already carrying a small glowing mint sealThe release

What WordPress 7.1 changes for AI image provenance

7.1 can rebuild your images in the browser before they ever reach your server. What that does to provenance written inside the file, what we measured against the release candidate, and the one line that turns it off.

Read guide

Article 50 is in force.

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