The AI Act foresees a one-year period, from 2 August 2025, in which providers of the most advanced models must comply with their obligations before the Commission’s enforcement powers enter into application on 2 August 2026. Providers must, for instance, notify the Commission when they know they are developing one of the most advanced models. They must also assess and mitigate systemic risks from those models and most of the relevant providers have signed and are implementing the GPAI Code of Practice to this end. Since last year, the Commission’s AI Office has therefore received information and held technical compliance dialogues with providers to improve their practices to assess and mitigate systemic risks.
The AI Office views these technical compliance dialogues as a first tool of choice to assess compliance and clarify questions to support providers’ efforts. So, in one important way, nothing changes in August – the AI Office will continue and, if anything, intensify, the ongoing technical compliance dialogues.
In preparation for 2 August 2026, the AI Office has also established the structures and competencies needed for using enforcement powers. The powers include requesting information, requesting access to a model for evaluations, requiring risk mitigation measures, and issuing fines of up to 3% of global annual turnover or requesting a provider to restrict the making available on the market, withdraw or recall the model. The AI Office may use these powers in cases where technical compliance dialogues are not sufficient.