Italian Law 132/2025opens in a new tab has been in force since 10 October 2025, and Article 13 applies to every intellectual profession. It says AI systems may be used for supporting activities, with the professional’s own intellectual work remaining predominant, and that the client must be informed in clear, plain and complete terms.
The statute does not say how. No form, no signature, no timing. That freedom reads as good news for two days, and then becomes the real question: what do I write, and where do I put it.
What it has to say
“Clear, plain and complete” rules out three things that turn up in most first drafts. It rules out the generic line (“the firm may make use of advanced software tools”), which is not complete. It rules out the technical paragraph about models and architectures, which is not plain. And it rules out the clause buried at point fourteen of a six-page retainer, which is not clear.
What you need fits into four statements: what the tool is used for, what stays in the professional’s hands, what happens to the client’s data, and who to ask for more or to opt out. The first two are what Article 13 asks for; the third is what the GDPRopens in a new tab asks for, and without it the notice is silent on the one thing that worries people; the fourth is what turns a disclaimer into a communication.
A version you can copy
This is a starting point, not a legal template: it has to match how the firm actually works, because a notice describing a different practice from the real one is worse than no notice.
“In carrying out this engagement the Firm makes use of artificial intelligence systems for supporting activities: searching for precedent, summarising documents, first drafts. Every result is checked and adopted by the professional, who remains solely responsible for the content of filings and advice. Documents concerning the client are not transmitted to artificial intelligence suppliers: identifying data is replaced with placeholders by a program running on the Firm’s own computers, before any text is sent. The client may at any time ask for more information, or ask that these tools not be used on their matter, by writing to [address].”
The third sentence carries the whole notice, and it is also the only one you can write only if it is true. If the firm pastes documents into a public chat, that sentence cannot go in, and nothing else in the text covers for it.
Where it goes
Three places work, and they do not exclude each other. The retainer or engagement letter, which is where the client already reads the fees and the way you work: the natural place, with the advantage of being signed. The quote, for work that starts there. A separate notice handed over with the privacy information, which is the way to update existing clients without reopening every retainer.
What you need in all three cases is proof that you gave it. Not because the statute puts it that way, but because the burden of showing compliance falls on the person who owed it, and something said out loud has no date on it.
“In writing, up front” is not in the text, and is still the right call
The second paragraph is worth reading whole, because almost everything written about it adds something: “to ensure the relationship of trust between professional and client, information about the artificial intelligence systems used by the professional shall be communicated to the recipient of the intellectual service in clear, plain and complete language”. No “in writing”, no “in advance”, no form to fill in.
The distinction matters because it separates what you owe from what you choose. You owe clarity; the form is yours to decide. And the sensible choice is still writing, before the engagement, for a reason that is not in Law 132 at all: proof. In disciplinary and civil proceedings the question will not be “did you inform them”, it will be “show that you informed them”, and a sentence said in a first meeting has no date, no recoverable content, and no answer to a client who says they never heard it.
There is a simpler reason too. The opening words of that paragraph are relationship of trust. A client who finds out about the AI later, and from somebody else, has suffered no loss: they have lost the very thing the statute says it means to protect.
And there is a second audience: the people in the office
Law 132/2025 is not only about clients. Article 11 deals with artificial intelligence in employment and invokes the information duty in Article 1-bis of Legislative Decree 152/1997opens in a new tab: where an employer uses automated systems that affect the employment relationship, workers must be informed in writing about what the system affects, with what purpose, on what operating logic, which categories of data it uses and what controls exist, and it has to happen at least twenty-four hours before a significant change.
Here the writing requirement is real, and the contrast is the surprising part: towards the client the law asks for clarity, towards the employee it asks for a document. The trigger is narrow, though, and it is worth not widening it out of caution: the rule looks at systems that decide or monitor, meaning hiring, allocation of tasks, evaluation, performance monitoring. A tool that summarises a document or swaps the names in a filing decides nothing about anybody, and does not set that duty running.
For a firm with employees the practical step is to read the list of tools in use and split it in two columns: the ones that help do the work, and the ones that say something about the worker. The second column is usually empty, and it is worth knowing that for certain rather than hoping it.
The question that comes next
Once it is written, the client’s second question is always the same: and where do my documents end up. It is worth arriving prepared, because the answer is also the only checkable part of the whole conversation.
“Identifying data is replaced before the text leaves, by a program running on our own computers” is an answer you can show: you open the program and demonstrate it. That is why Omissia runs locally and shows every value before substituting it. What not doing so means in criminal and disciplinary terms is in the piece on secrecy.