EU AI Act
The European regulation that classifies AI systems by risk and assigns obligations to providers and deployers.
What is EU AI Act?
The EU AI Act entered into force on 1 August 2024 and applies in stages. Prohibited-practice and AI-literacy rules began applying in February 2025, GPAI obligations in August 2025, and transparency rules in August 2026. Under the current timetable, specified high-risk use cases apply from December 2027 and high-risk systems embedded in regulated products from August 2028. See EU AI Act-Ready Architecture and VDF AI Compliance.
What is an example of EU AI Act?
An enterprise may be a deployer when it buys an applicant-ranking system, but become a provider if it develops or substantially modifies a system and places it on the market under its own name. The duties must be mapped per system and role.
How is EU AI Act different from related concepts?
The EU AI Act is product and market regulation for AI. GDPR governs personal-data processing. The same deployment can trigger both, along with sector-specific laws.
Why it matters for on-premise & regulated AI
The EU AI Act assigns obligations across the AI value chain, including duties for deployers of high-risk systems. On-premise deployment can simplify evidence collection because logs, model versions, access controls, and oversight mechanisms are generated and retained on infrastructure the organization controls. With transparency rules applying from August 2026 and the current high-risk timetable extending into 2027 and 2028, deployment architecture is a compliance decision as well as an IT decision.
What should enterprises evaluate for EU AI Act?
- Inventory AI, identify the intended purpose and operator role, then classify each system and model against the applicable categories.
- Map obligations to accountable owners, technical controls, documentation, monitoring, incident handling, and evidence.
- Use the consolidated legal text and current European Commission timeline because implementation guidance and dates can change.
Read the full guide: EU AI Act — in-depth article →
Related terms
Authoritative sources
Primary sources for the formal meaning, requirements, or original research behind EU AI Act:
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