What the upcoming AI Act actually means for everyday enterprise structures

While everyone is shouting “it’s for realz now”*, what will the AIAct actually mean for most organisations? Awareness (“AI literacy”) obligations and obligations to ensure that people know (i) if they are interacting with an AI system or (ii) whether they are subject to an AI system – and safeguards to ensure that no high-risk AI system is used without prior verifications.

While a lot of the focus is on how severe the obligations are re the use of “high-risk” AI systems is subject to a wide range of obligations, the majority of businesses are unlikely to use such systems on a regular basis, except perhaps for employment monitoring & recruitment ones.

Developers of AI systems are of course subject to a great many obligations (as “provider” of the AI system most of the time), but most organisations will act as a “deployer” in the AI Act lingo.

So if you are a business, here are some key pointers:

– If you are a developer of AI systems or otherwise in the AI system supply chain, the AI Act has lots of new obligations for you

– If you are not a developer of AI systems, you can still be subject to those obligations if you apply your own branding to the AI system or otherwise modify it

– If you can avoid that requalification, your focus is ensuring that your employees understand how to use AI systems and what are the risks/benefits and right reflexes (in terms of compliance and ethics, as well as risk mitigation), and that key principles of good AIgovernance are complied with (transparency in particular)

Put differently: focus first on AI governance and the identification of scenarios in which high-risk AI systems might even be a possibility for your business, before worrying about the likelihood of a fine of 7% of your turnover.

And hey, don’t forget the AI Act is only one piece of the puzzle anyway. GDPR and data protection rules, ePrivacy, intellectualproperty, liability rules, ethics, there is a lot to take into account.
Don’t let your advisors be only focussed on the AI Act – for a more rounded approach tailored to your business needs, get in touch.

* Voted in plenary by the European Parliament, it needs confirmation by the Member States in the Council (in this particular case, just a formality given the COREPER agreement and other statements) and cleaning up (numbering, wording, etc) before it can be published in the EU Official Journal. We’re almost there, but the text is pretty much “final” now.