European Union Artificial Intelligence Act

node · earth · European Union

The first comprehensive statutory regime for AI systems, in force from 1 August 2024, structured by risk tier rather than by technology: prohibited practices, high-risk systems carrying conformity obligations, transparency duties, and a separate track for general-purpose models. Its interest for this Journey is what happened to its timetable. The obligations for high-risk systems were to apply from 2 August 2026; a Digital Omnibus proposal published on 19 November 2025 sought to defer them; the Council and Parliament agreed a text on 7 May 2026; and the amending act was published in the Official Journal on 24 July 2026 and entered into force on 27 July 2026, moving the Annex III stand-alone high-risk deadline to 2 December 2027 and the Annex I embedded-system deadline to 2 August 2028, while transparency duties and the AI literacy obligation kept their original dates. A regime designed for a technology whose capability was expected to be assessable found the assessment machinery — the harmonised standards it depends on — was not ready in time. That is a measurement problem expressed as law.