Software engineer David E. Weekly (LinkedIn profile) has published an HTML proposal that would label AI-generated sections of webpages for disclosure. The idea, now under discussion on GitHub and covered by Search Engine Journal, targets partial AI content within otherwise human-written pages and is linked to upcoming European Union rules on disclosing AI-generated text.
Key Details
Weekly's proposal introduces a new HTML attribute to mark specific sections of a page as AI-generated. The attribute would be applied to semantic elements, with the primary example using the existing HTML <aside> element. The goal is to cover scenarios where only parts of a webpage, such as summaries or sidebars, come from generative systems.
- Existing proposals mainly focus on page-level disclosure using HTML
<meta>tags or HTTP response headers. - Weekly points to a WHATWG HTML issue suggesting a page-level AI disclosure meta tag (issue 9479).
- He also cites an IETF draft, "draft-abaris-aicdh-00," on HTTP response signals for AI content disclosure.
- The new attribute would provide machine-readable labels for section-level content so crawlers can distinguish human and AI-generated text within the same page.
Weekly highlights news sites as a key use case, where human-written articles may appear alongside AI-generated summary sidebars. He suggests wrapping such summaries in <aside> elements that carry the proposed attribute, signaling their automated origin to machines. The proposal also discusses how this would interact with accessibility tools that already treat <aside> as supplementary content.
In the GitHub discussion, some participants support standardized section-level labeling, while others question whether new markup is needed at all. At least one commenter argues that the proposal is primarily compliance-driven rather than addressing an inherent gap in the web platform. Concerns include potential misuse of existing semantic elements and limited benefits for users and developers beyond regulatory signaling.
Background Context
The proposal builds on the HTML <aside> element, which represents content indirectly related to a document's main content. According to Mozilla Developer Network documentation for the HTML <aside> element, it is often used for sidebars, callout boxes, or related advertising blocks. Assistive technologies can treat these regions differently from the primary reading flow.
Weekly connects the attribute to transparency duties in Article 50 of the European Union AI Act. Article 50, which takes effect in August 2026, requires machine-readable marking of AI-generated text content. Weekly says this timeline is creating demand for signals that could help web publishers comply.
Previous work referenced in the discussion focuses on page-level disclosures rather than marking discrete sections within mixed-origin pages. Both the WHATWG HTML meta tag proposal and the IETF header draft operate at document scope. Weekly's draft remains under discussion and has not been adopted into any formal standard.
Source Citations
Key primary sources referenced in the proposal and surrounding discussion include specification repositories and official documentation.
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