Telephone Consumer Protection Act and AI use cases

An agent that answers questions, books tours and takes requests falls under the transparency duty of Article 50. It becomes high risk under Annex III point 5(b) if it evaluates the creditworthiness of applicants, for example in tenant screening, and under point 5(a) if a public body uses it to decide eligibility for social housing or other public assistance.

People must be told they are interacting with an AI system, and synthetic voice or text must be identifiable as such (Article 50). Reminding people of existing bookings and disclosure alone are limited risk. A missed appointment score used by or for a public authority to grant, reduce, revoke or reclaim access to healthcare or other essential public assistance and services, for example deciding who is offered funded transport, can fall within Annex III point 5(a), and profiling of natural persons within Annex III rules out the Article 6(3) exemption. Using the score only to decide who gets extra reminders or support does not by itself place it outside Annex III when that support is itself the assistance being granted.

Drafting outreach that a rep reviews and sends as their own message is typically minimal risk. If the agent holds conversations with prospects itself, for example by replying to emails or calling, people must be told they are interacting with AI (Article 50, limited risk). It is not an Annex III use case.

Booking, rescheduling and reminders carry transparency duties: patients must be told they are dealing with AI (Article 50(1)). It becomes high risk if a public authority, or a provider acting on its behalf, uses it to evaluate eligibility for healthcare services (Annex III point 5(a)), or if it acts as an emergency healthcare patient triage system (Annex III point 5(d)). Clinical triage may also make it a medical device, which is high risk under Article 6(1) when the device needs a notified body assessment. Keep the agent to scheduling and use risk scores only to offer support.

An assistant that answers questions and sends reminders falls under the transparency duty of Article 50. It becomes high risk under Annex III point 3(a) if it is used to determine access or admission or to assign students to institutions, and under point 3(c) if it assesses the level of education a student will receive. Keep admission and placement decisions with staff.

A sales assistant is limited risk with an Article 50 duty to disclose AI. If it assesses the creditworthiness of individuals for devices on credit, that part is high risk under Annex III point 5(b), so keep credit decisions in the existing governed process. Selling that uses manipulative or deceptive techniques, or exploits a customer's age, disability or economic situation, to materially distort a purchase decision in a way likely to cause significant harm is prohibited under Article 5(1)(a) and (b).

Most personalization and content generation is minimal risk. Providers of systems that generate synthetic audio, image, video or text content must mark the output as artificially generated, and deployers must disclose deep fakes (Article 50(2) and 50(4)). Personalization that deploys manipulative or deceptive techniques, or exploits vulnerabilities due to age, disability or a specific social or economic situation, in a way that causes or is reasonably likely to cause significant harm, is prohibited under Article 5(1)(a) and (b). Using AI to assess creditworthiness or to price life and health insurance is high risk under Annex III point 5(b) and 5(c) and belongs on its own page. Outside the AI Act, the FCA Consumer Duty applies only to FCA regulated firms (the financial services slice of this use case), and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act applies only to campaigns delivered by call or text message in the US.

A customer facing collections agent must disclose that it is AI (Article 50). It is not listed in Annex III as long as it applies preapproved arrangement rules and does not itself evaluate creditworthiness; an affordability model that decides who gets which arrangement for individuals should be assessed separately against Annex III point 5(b).

Confirming flagged transactions with cardholders is not listed in Annex III, and point 5(b) expressly excludes AI used to detect financial fraud from the creditworthiness category, so the system is not high risk. An agent that messages or calls customers must tell them they are dealing with AI under Article 50(1), and synthetic voice output must be marked as AI generated under Article 50(2).

A customer facing sales agent must make clear that people are talking to an AI system, unless that is obvious (Article 50(1)). Qualifying and routing prospects is not an Annex III use. It becomes high risk where the same system takes on an Annex III task, for example evaluating the creditworthiness of natural persons (Annex III point 5(b)) or assessing risk and pricing for life or health insurance (point 5(c)); those decisions then need the high risk controls.

A customer facing agent must disclose that it is AI (Article 50(1)). It stays out of Annex III as long as eligibility for credit offers is decided upstream by the bank's own, separately governed credit processes; if the agent itself assessed creditworthiness it would be high risk under point 5(b).