EU AI Act

The EU AI Act, Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, is the EU's horizontal law on artificial intelligence. It entered into force on 1 August 2024 and regulates AI by risk: some practices are banned outright (Article 5), high-risk systems carry the heaviest duties for providers and deployers, certain systems carry transparency duties (Article 50), and general-purpose AI models have a chapter of their own.

Its obligations apply in stages. As of 30 September 2026:

• Since 2 February 2025: the prohibitions and the AI literacy duty in Article 4.
• Since 2 August 2025: the general-purpose AI rules, governance and the penalty regime.
• Since 2 August 2026: general application, including the Article 50 transparency duties, with the Commission's AI Office and national authorities enforcing the Act.
• From 2 December 2026: two further prohibitions added in 2026.
• From 2 December 2027: high-risk obligations for the stand-alone uses listed in Annex III, such as creditworthiness assessment and recruitment.
• From 2 August 2028: high-risk obligations for AI embedded in products covered by Annex I, such as medical devices.

The last two dates are recent. The Digital Omnibus on AI, Regulation (EU) 2026/1744, published on 24 July 2026 and in force since 27 July 2026, moved them from 2 August 2026 and 2 August 2027 and left the other dates in place, as the Commission's timeline shows. Fines for prohibited practices reach EUR 35 million or 7% of worldwide annual turnover, whichever is higher.

Most compliance teams meet the Act first as deployers of tools they buy. Our deployer checklist maps each deployer duty to its date, and the Act's human oversight requirement for high-risk systems is one reason compliance tooling keeps a human in the loop.

This entry is general information, not legal advice.