Visual Icons
TAP does not mandate a specific icon set. Implementors MAY use any of the following recognized visual indicators for AI-generated or AI-assisted content:
EU AI Act icons
The European Commission published a set of three icons under the Code of Practice on marking and labelling of AI-generated content (Article 50, EU AI Act):
- Basic - circle with "AI" text. Use when AI was involved in content creation.
- AI Generated - circle with "AI" + label "AI GENERATED". Fully AI-generated content.
- AI Modified - circle with "AI" + label "AI MODIFIED". Human content partially modified by AI.
Available in SVG and PNG, four color variants (black, white, each at 100% and 50% opacity). Free to use without attribution. Implementors MAY recolor the icons to match their status system (e.g. green/yellow/red).
Download: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/eu-icons-labelling-ai-generated-content
Applicable from August 2, 2026 under Article 50 transparency obligations.
Industry sparkle icons
The sparkle/star symbol (commonly rendered as a four-pointed or multi-pointed star) has become a de facto industry marker for AI features, used by Google (Gemini), Apple (Apple Intelligence), OpenAI, and others. It is not standardized by any regulatory body but is widely recognized by users.
TAP implementors MAY use sparkle-style icons alongside or instead of EU icons, particularly in contexts where the EU regulatory framework does not apply.
Relationship to TAP
Icons provide the visual disclosure layer. TAP metadata (headers, front matter, trailers) provides the machine-readable provenance layer. These are complementary:
- Icon alone = compliance with disclosure requirements (EU AI Act)
- TAP metadata alone = machine-readable provenance (crawlers, LLMs, audits)
- Icon + TAP metadata = full transparency stack
TAP does not compete with the EU AI Act framework. Both emerged independently; TAP predates the Code of Practice icons. They address different layers of the same transparency goal and are fully compatible.