EU AI Act check: what applies to your use of AI?
Answer four short questions. You will see straight away which risk class your use cases fall into and how many obligations already apply. On request, we email you the full assessment with deadlines and next steps.
The AI Act deadlines at a glance
| Since / from | What applies |
|---|---|
| 2 Feb 2025 | Prohibited practices (Art. 5), such as emotion recognition in the workplace. Obligation to take measures on AI literacy (Art. 4). |
| 2 Aug 2025 | Obligations for providers of general-purpose AI models. Penalty provisions (Art. 99). |
| 2 Aug 2026 | Transparency obligations (Art. 50): make AI interaction recognisable, disclose deepfakes, inform people about emotion recognition. |
| 2 Dec 2026 | Two new prohibitions (non-consensual intimate deepfakes, child sexual abuse material). Machine-readable marking for systems already on the market before 2 August 2026. |
| 2 Dec 2027 | High-risk AI under Annex III, e.g. recruitment, credit scoring, biometric identification. Deployer obligations under Art. 26, fundamental rights impact assessment under Art. 27. |
| 2 Aug 2028 | High-risk AI in products under Annex I, e.g. machinery and medical devices. |
Does the AI Act apply if we only use ChatGPT or Copilot?
Yes. Anyone using AI in a professional context is a deployer under the AI Act (Art. 3(4)). Since 2 February 2025, deployers must take measures to support the AI literacy of their staff (Art. 4). Otherwise, general text and translation assistants fall into the lowest risk class.
When do the high-risk obligations apply?
For high-risk AI under Annex III (e.g. recruitment, credit scoring) the obligations apply from 2 December 2027, for AI in products under Annex I from 2 August 2028. Both dates were postponed by Regulation (EU) 2026/1744.
What has applied since 2 August 2026?
Since 2 August 2026 the transparency obligations under Art. 50 apply: people must be able to tell that they are talking to an AI, deepfakes must be disclosed, and people must be informed about emotion recognition.
Who enforces the AI Act?
Each Member State designates national market surveillance authorities. In Germany this is the Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur), for the financial sector BaFin.