EU AI Act Milestone: What Changes for GPAI and High‑Risk Systems After August 2, 2025
The EU AI Act reached a major enforcement milestone on August 2, 2025. From this date, governance rules and obligations for General‑Purpose AI (GPAI) models apply across the EU, with more provisions phasing in through 2026–2027. If you build, deploy, or distribute AI systems in or into the EU, this date reshapes your compliance roadmap.
What took effect
- GPAI transparency: Model providers must publish detailed system documentation, training data summaries (including copyright disclosure), and evaluation reports.
- Governance and oversight: The AI Office and national authorities gained enforcement powers. Expect requests for documentation and market surveillance actions.
- Prohibitions & literacy (Feb 2025): Bans on certain uses and AI literacy duties are already active.
Coming next
- Full applicability by Aug 2, 2026: The majority of obligations kick in by 2026, including stricter conformity assessments.
- High‑risk products (Aug 2, 2027): Extended transition for embedded high‑risk AI (e.g., medical devices, machinery).
Action checklist for builders
- Publish a model system card covering capabilities, limitations, and misuse risks.
- Prepare copyright training data disclosures and evaluation reports with standardized benchmarks and stress tests.
- Stand up a post‑market monitoring process to collect incidents, evaluate drift, and push safety updates.
- Map supply‑chain roles (provider, importer, distributor) and contractual responsibilities across partners.
- For high‑risk uses, plan conformity assessment and quality management mapping early.
Penalties & risk
Non‑compliance can trigger fines up to €35M or 7% of global turnover, whichever is higher, for certain violations. Beyond fines, expect buyer scrutiny: tenders increasingly require auditable model governance and copyright compliance.
Bottom line
The EU AI Act is no longer a future concern—it is a live requirement for GPAI providers today. Organizations that operationalize documentation, robust evaluation, and incident response will be best positioned to sell into the EU and weather audits in 2026–2027.
Further reading: European Commission timeline and independent trackers summarizing the staged applicability.
