Official name: Artificial Intelligence Act
Citation: Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 of 13 June 2024 laying down harmonised rules on artificial intelligence
Year / status: In force 1 August 2024. Application is staged. Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 (Digital Omnibus on AI, in force 27 July 2026) moved some high-risk dates and left the Act in place.
What it does
The Act bans some practices, imposes heavy duties on listed high-risk systems (Annex III, the list of use-cases such as employment, credit, biometrics and critical infrastructure; Annex I, product-safety artificial intelligence), and sets transparency rules for certain systems and for general-purpose models. It is a product-and-risk law for systems placed on the market.
Where it applies / status
Directly applicable in EU Member States, with extra-territorial reach for providers who place systems on the Union market or whose output is used there. National authorities and the EU AI Office share enforcement.
Documented benefits or intended effects
Intended effects: keep prohibited uses off the market, force documentation and human-oversight design for high-risk systems, and make some generative output identifiable. Those are design aims. Measured harm figures belong in later official evaluations.
Caveats
Phasing matters. After the 2026 omnibus, Annex III high-risk rules apply from 2 December 2027 and Annex I product-related rules from 2 August 2028, while Article 50 transparency duties applied from 2 August 2026. A headline that the Act is delayed covers only part of that timetable. Definitions and annex lists will be litigated.
Sources
EUR-Lex text of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689; European Commission regulatory-framework page; European Commission enforcement-timeline page (2026 update).
- EUR-Lex: Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (Artificial Intelligence Act)
- European Commission: Artificial Intelligence Act overview
- European Commission: Artificial Intelligence Act enforcement timeline (updated 2026)