In brief
On 20 July 2026, the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) published the Transparency Guidelines for Generative AI Chatbots ("Guidelines"), which IMDA describes as being among the first such guidelines in the world.
The Guidelines set out how generative AI (“GenAI”) chatbot deployers can provide meaningful transparency to consumers about their applications. This covers the types of information that consumers find relevant and how to ensure that the information is shared with them in a clear, accessible, and timely manner.
In more detail
Scope of the Guidelines
The Guidelines centre on GenAI chatbots as a starting point, given their scale, high consumer touchpoint, and growing societal concerns around data privacy, the safety of minors, and risks to mentally vulnerable users. However, deployers can use the Guidelines as a reference point when providing transparency for other GenAI applications. Sectoral regulators can also build on them to develop more specific transparency guidelines for applications in their sectors.
Objective of the Guidelines
The Guidelines aim to:
- Enable informed use: When users understand an application's capabilities and limitations, they can make better decisions, verify outputs where appropriate, and recognise when use may be inappropriate.
- Standardise disclosure: A consistent framework helps users compare applications and find relevant information quickly, rather than navigating multiple documents.
- Enhance accountability: By stating their own safety commitments clearly, deployers have an opportunity to set a public standard for their chatbot’s safety and reliability, against which users can better understand and assess the service.
Chatbot info card
The Guidelines refer to a chatbot info card, which may take different forms, such as a dedicated information page or disclosure document. It gives users a single, consolidated place to find essential information about the chatbot they are using.
The info card is built around three principles which are elaborated upon in the Guidelines: relevance, accessibility, and timeliness.
- Relevance: The info card should answer the questions users care about — what the chatbot can and cannot do, how reliable and safe it is, how their data is handled, and how to raise concerns or report issues.
- Accessibility: The information should be written in plain language, easy to navigate, and easy to find.
- Timeliness: The info card should also remain up to date, and deployers are encouraged to publish it when the chatbot is made available to users and to update it when significant changes affect the chatbot's capabilities, risks, or safety policies.
Key takeaways
While the Guidelines are voluntary, IMDA presents them as a practical framework for improving transparency in a manner that is useful to consumers and realistic for chatbot deployers to implement. Further, the IMDA has indicated that the Guidelines have received support from sector regulators such as the Monetary Authority of Singapore and Ministry of Health, as well as major AI deployers in Singapore. IMDA also states that deployers may use the Guidelines as a reference point for other GenAI applications, and that it will work with sectoral regulators and other partners to extend and adapt the principles to the transparency needs of different domains. Organisations may wish to consider whether the framework could inform their AI transparency practices more broadly.
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