Portugal names Anacom as AI regulator and national focal point

Portugal Taps Anacom to Oversee AI: What PR and Communications Teams Need to Do Now

Portugal will appoint the National Communications Authority (Anacom) as the supervisory authority and focal point for artificial intelligence. The announcement came from the Secretary of State for Digitalisation, Bernardo Correia, at Anacom's conference on "Artificial Intelligence: The Challenges of Innovation and Regulation" in Lisbon.

Correia said Anacom will be the main market supervisor and coordinator for companies and citizens, concentrating regulatory and technological capacity. He highlighted AI as "the present," stressing it must be ethical, auditable, free of bias, and support decisions without replacing human judgement.

The government is finalising a National Agenda for Artificial Intelligence and working on the implementation of the EU AI Act into national law with a pragmatic approach to give businesses clarity and predictability.

Why this matters for PR and Communications

• Single point of contact: Expect Anacom to be your primary interface on AI use in content, campaigns, and tools.
• Clearer rules, more scrutiny: Guidance and oversight will tighten around AI disclosures, bias, and claims in public messaging.
• EU AI Act alignment: Transparency for AI-generated content (including synthetic media) and documentation of AI use will be enforced.

What Anacom's oversight means in practice

• Coordination: Anacom will act as a coordinator for companies and citizens on AI issues, helping simplify who you engage with on compliance.
• Predictability: Leveraging its track record in tech markets, expect guidance that aims to reduce ambiguity for campaigns and vendors.
• Compliance signal: PR teams should prepare for guidance on disclosures, audits, and complaint handling related to AI-generated content.

Immediate checklist for PR and Comms teams

• Map AI use: Inventory where AI is used across content creation, media monitoring, social scheduling, sentiment analysis, and personalization.
• Label AI content: Add clear disclosures for AI-generated text, images, audio, and video. Include watermarking or visible tags for synthetic media.
• Set review gates: Require human approval for AI outputs that affect reputation, legal claims, or regulated topics.
• Bias and accuracy checks: Build a documented process for testing AI outputs for bias, factual errors, and misleading claims.
• Data and rights: Verify consent, usage rights, and data provenance for assets and datasets used by AI tools.
• Vendor due diligence: Ask suppliers for their AI compliance documentation, model sources, safeguards, and incident procedures.
• Crisis playbooks: Prepare response templates for AI-related incidents such as deepfake attacks, hallucinated claims, or disclosure failures.
• Record-keeping: Keep logs of prompts, model versions, approvals, and disclosure placements for audits.
• Team training: Train staff on disclosure standards, prompt hygiene, bias checks, and approval protocols.

Messaging and media guidance

• Be explicit: If AI assisted creation, say so. Avoid vague phrasing that could be seen as hiding AI use.
• Avoid overclaiming: Don't attribute capabilities to AI tools that you can't verify or support with evidence.
• Synthetic media rules: Clearly mark altered or generated visuals and audio, and keep originals on file.
• Stakeholder clarity: Brief spokespeople on your AI use and safeguards so they can answer questions with confidence.

What to watch next

• National Agenda for AI: Expect direction on priorities, sector focus, and timelines.
• Guidance from Anacom: Look for practical rules on disclosures, audits, complaint channels, and coordination with other regulators.
• EU AI Act implementation: Track timelines and transparency duties that affect PR workflows and content labeling.

Authoritative resources:

• EU AI Act overview (European Commission)
• Anacom - Autoridade Nacional de Comunicações

If you're building team skills around disclosure, bias checks, and safe AI content workflows, explore curated learning paths by role: AI courses by job.