The legislative process on artificial intelligence (AI) in the European Union has reached an important milestone, after the EU Council approved the final text of the AI Act on 21 May, so the AI Act can enter into force shortly, 20 days after its publication in the Official Journal.
Update (15.07.2024): The AI Act (Regulation 2024/1689) was published in the Official Journal on July 12, 2024. The AI Act enters into force on August 1, 2024.
As a general rule, the AI Act provides a 24-month grace period after its entry into force (i.e. until 02.02.2026, the requirements set out in the regulation become applicable after the expiry of this period), but there are important exceptions:
- 6 months is provided to stop the so-called prohibited AI practices (Chapter 1 - General provisions and Chapter 2 - prohibited AI practices become applicable 6 months after AI Act´s entry into force, i.e. after 02.02.2025),
- the AI Act provides 12 months (i.e. until 02.08.2025) for preparing for the application of the rules related to general purpose AI systems (see in particular Chapter V), for designating and setting up authorities and organisational systems that play a key role in the implementation and enforcement of the AI Act (see e.g. Chapter 3, Section 4, Chapter VII) and for sanctions (Chapter XII) to become applicable;
- the provisions of Article 6(1) concerning classification rules for high-risk AI systems and the related obligations will apply 36 months after AI Act´s entry into force (i.e. until 02.08.2027).
Given that the preparation and application of the AI Act will be a challenging task for businesses and other organizations, I will try to present certain provisions of the AI Act in more detail in the below and also in further posts, covering the details essential for the application of this new law in practice. In this post, I discuss the expected impact of the adoption of the AI Act, the first steps of preparation, and who will be obliged to comply with the adoption of the AI Act.