Notes on AI, data and rules.
What applies to every sector: what is changing in the law, in Google and in AI assistants, and what your website should do about it.
AI, data and rules ·
An AI agent does not read your menu at leisure. It looks for a free table at nine, and if it cannot see one, you do not exist.
Since November 2025, Google’s AI Mode has searched reservation platforms for real-time availability and returned a shortlist of restaurants, first in the US and, since April 2026, in the UK. TheFork works inside ChatGPT in Spain and Switzerland. What has been announced, what I do not know, why a beautiful website is not enough, and what I would do with a high-end restaurant or hotel.
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Spain plans to delay VeriFactu to October 2028. The clock for business-to-business e-invoicing, on the other hand, is already running.
On 5 October 2026, Spain’s Ministry of Finance announced that it plans to delay the outstanding VeriFactu obligations to October 2028. A day later, the order that starts the calendar for mandatory e-invoicing between businesses came into force: October 2027 for companies invoicing more than 8 million euros, October 2028 for everyone else. What that means for a clinic, a hotel or an estate agency in Spain, and why the invoice starts on the website.
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A booking does not end when the client pays. It ends when they read the confirmation.
Since 2024, Gmail has required authentication from everyone sending email to its users, and since November 2025 it has been enforcing the rule with temporary and permanent rejections. What it requires, why the failure is silent, the detail that turns a newsletter into a permanent change of rules, and why a booking does not end when the client pays.
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Since 1 October 2026, WhatsApp Business charges for replies too. The price per message is the least of it.
Since 1 October 2026, Meta has been charging again for WhatsApp Business replies from the 1,001st each month per number, and the rate depends on the country of the phone receiving the message, not on yours. What changed, what it really costs, why Meta’s own AI agent is billed separately, and how to design the channel so that most conversations start with your client.
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Before you speak to the person who is going to buy from you, someone else already has. For hotels it is the platform; for estate agencies, the portal; for boarding schools, the agent; for clinics, the insurer.
In the four sectors I work with, someone talks to the client before the business does: the platform, the portal, the agent or the insurer. In European hotels, online travel agencies have gone from 19.7% to 29.9% of bookings in twelve years. Why I do not suggest breaking with any intermediary, and why what you can win is the second contact.
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Since 28 June 2025, selling online to consumers in Spain has required an accessible website. The most common failure is also the most elegant.
Since 28 June 2025, Spain’s Law 11/2023 has required e-commerce services for consumers to be accessible, with an exemption for micro-enterprises. What it asks for beyond design, who can complain, what fines the general regime sets, and why the most common website failure is the grey text that passes for good taste in luxury.
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Google already answers your clients’ questions. The question is whom it cites.
Since March 2025, Google has shown AI summaries in Switzerland and Spain. A Pew study in the United States found that when one appears, clicks on results fall by almost half, and hardly anyone clicks the sources inside the summary. Why that does not make a company’s content worthless, but changes what it is for: being the source that gets cited, and converting the visit that still arrives.
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In Switzerland, the data protection fine does not hit the company. It hits a person.
Data protection makes most people think of GDPR fines in the millions against large groups. The Swiss act sets fines of up to CHF 250,000, and it aims them first at the people who act. What the law says, when the company pays instead, and why a harmless-looking online tool can become one person’s problem.
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The delay is real. It does not cover your chatbot.
In July the EU moved its high-risk AI rules to December 2027 and August 2028. Many companies read that as a general delay. It is not: the transparency rules for chatbots and realistic AI images have applied since August 2026, and Switzerland already reaches a similar rule through its data protection law. What applies now, and where clinics, schools, hotels and agencies meet high risk without noticing.
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The three-minute rule binds a few. The part that binds you passed almost unnoticed.
Everyone talks about Spain’s law requiring a human within three minutes, which only binds large companies. Almost nobody mentions the article it changed for everyone else: fifteen days to answer, one more channel to staff, and a duty that has existed since 2007.
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The enquiries you lose make no noise.
A Sunday-night scene, what an AI assistant really does with incoming enquiries and what has been measured. Then the blind spots, from Air Canada to WhatsApp, worth knowing before you sign.
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