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EU Artificial Intelligence Act — Regulation (EU) 2024/1689

Source: European Union, Official Journal (reproduction authorised with source acknowledgement, Decision 2011/833/EU) | Chapters: 12

When to use

Use this skill when classifying an AI system under the EU risk framework, determining which obligations apply to a provider, deployer, importer, distributor, or GPAI model provider, or analysing penalties and enforcement. It is the primary reference for any EU market compliance question involving AI systems or foundation/GPAI models placed on the Union market from 2025 onward. Use it before advising on AI product design, contract structure between value-chain parties, or incident response procedures.

Prerequisites: none — plain Markdown; no MCP server, API key, or licence tier needed at runtime.

How to Use This Skill

• Without arguments — load the core frameworks and classification rules.
• With a topic — ask about "GPAI systemic risk", "biometric ID prohibition", "conformity assessment route", "FRIA", "value chain liability", "serious incident reporting", "transparency obligations", "Annex III area 4 employment AI".
• With a chapter — ask for ch03 (classification), ch04 (requirements), ch08 (GPAI), ch12 (Annex III use cases).

Supporting files: glossary.md, patterns.md, cheatsheet.md.

Core Frameworks and Mental Models

1. The Four-Tier Risk Architecture

The Act organises AI systems into four tiers, each with escalating obligations:

Tier	Trigger	Consequence
Prohibited	Art 5 — 8 specific practices	Absolute ban; no compliance route; applies from 2 Feb 2025
High-risk	Art 6 Route A (Annex I product + third-party conformity assessment) OR Route B (Annex III use-case area, unless de minimis applies)	Full Ch III obligations: RMS, data governance, docs, logging, transparency, human oversight, accuracy/robustness/cybersecurity; conformity assessment; CE marking; EU database registration
Transparency-only	Art 50 — human-AI interaction, synthetic content generation, emotion recognition, biometric categorisation, deep fakes	Disclosure and machine-readable labelling obligations; applies to any AI system, regardless of risk tier
GPAI	Ch V — AI models trained at scale displaying significant generality	Baseline obligations for all GPAI; systemic-risk tier (>10^25 FLOPs or Commission designation) adds adversarial testing, incident reporting, and cybersecurity

2. Classification Decision Logic (Art 6)

Route A (product safety): AI system = safety component of an Annex I-sector product AND that product requires third-party conformity assessment under sector law → HIGH-RISK.

Route B (use-case list): AI system falls within an Annex III area → HIGH-RISK, unless the Art 6(3) de minimis carve-out applies. De minimis applies if the system: (a) performs a narrow procedural task, OR (b) improves the result of a previously completed human activity, OR (c) detects decision-making patterns without influencing prior human assessment, OR (d) performs a preparatory task to an Annex III assessment. Override: if the system performs profiling of natural persons, de minimis never applies — it is always high-risk.

Providers claiming de minimis must document the assessment and register in the EU database (Art 6(4)).

3. The Seven High-Risk Requirements (Art 8-15)

All seven apply cumulatively to every high-risk AI system. They must be met before placement on the market and maintained throughout the system's lifecycle:

1. Risk Management System (Art 9) — continuous iterative 4-step process; residual risk must be acceptable.
2. Data Governance (Art 10) — training/validation/testing data quality; bias detection and mitigation; strict conditions for special-category personal data use in bias correction.
3. Technical Documentation (Art 11) — Annex IV content; drawn up before placement; kept up to date; SMEs may use simplified form.
4. Automatic Logging (Art 12) — technically built into the system; biometric ID systems have enhanced minimum logging requirements.
5. Transparency to Deployers (Art 13) — instructions for use covering 7 content categories; enables deployer compliance with their own obligations.
6. Human Oversight (Art 14) — oversight measures enabling understanding, anti-bias awareness, output interpretation, override capability, and system interruption (stop button). Biometric ID: minimum two-person verification before action.
7. Accuracy, Robustness, Cybersecurity (Art 15) — declared accuracy metrics; resilience to errors; feedback-loop mitigation; AI-specific attack defence (data/model poisoning, adversarial examples).

4. Operator Roles and Liability Transfer

The Act assigns obligations by role in the supply chain:

• Provider (Art 16): Bears the heaviest burden — QMS, conformity assessment, CE marking, EU database registration, 10-year documentation retention, corrective actions.
• Deployer (Art 26): Follow instructions for use; assign and train human oversight persons; retain logs ≥6 months; notify workers; FRIA if public body; inform affected persons.
• Importer (Art 23): Verify conformity before placement; retain docs 10 years.
• Distributor (Art 24): Verify CE marking and DoC before making available.
• Liability transfer (Art 25): A party becomes the provider (and assumes all provider obligations) if it: affixes its name/trademark; makes a substantial modification; or changes the intended purpose to make a non-high-risk system high-risk.

5. GPAI Two-Tier Regime (Chapter V)

All GPAI providers: technical documentation (Annex XI), downstream provider information (Annex XII), copyright policy, training data summary. Open-source GPAI models are exempt from documentation and downstream information obligations — unless the model has systemic risk.

Systemic-risk GPAI providers additionally: adversarial testing (red-teaming), systemic risk assessment and mitigation, serious incident reporting to AI Office, cybersecurity protection. The 10^25 FLOPs training-compute threshold creates a rebuttable presumption of systemic risk. Notification to Commission required within 2 weeks of threshold being met. Commission has exclusive enforcement jurisdiction over GPAI (Art 88).

6. Governance Architecture

Union level: AI Office (Commission function, exclusive GPAI enforcement) → European AI Board (Member State representatives, advisory) → Advisory Forum (stakeholders) → Scientific Panel (independent experts, GPAI risk alerts).

Member State level: Notifying authority (notified body oversight) + Market surveillance authority (post-placement enforcement for non-GPAI AI systems). Each Member State designates one MSA as single point of contact.

7. Penalty Logic

Three national-authority tiers (Art 99): 7%/EUR 35M for prohibited practices; 3%/EUR 15M for operator/transparency obligation violations; 1%/EUR 7.5M for misleading information supply. Commission fines for GPAI violations (Art 101): 3%/EUR 15M. SMEs always pay the lower of the percentage or absolute amount. Fines are calculated on total worldwide annual turnover.

8. Key Application Dates

Prohibited practices applied from 2 February 2025. Full Act applies from 2 August 2026. GPAI obligations apply from 2 August 2025. Product-safety-route (Art 6(1)) AI applies from 2 August 2027.

Chapter Index

#	File	Key content
1	ch01-general-provisions.md	Subject matter, scope, 68 statutory definitions, AI literacy obligation
2	ch02-prohibited-practices.md	Eight prohibited AI practices; real-time RBIS conditional ban; applies from 2 Feb 2025
3	ch03-high-risk-classification.md	Art 6 two-route classification; Art 6(3) de minimis carve-out; Art 7 dynamic amendment; Annex III overview
4	ch04-high-risk-requirements.md	Seven requirements: RMS, data governance, technical docs, logging, transparency, human oversight, accuracy/robustness/cybersecurity
5	ch05-obligations-operators.md	Provider QMS; value-chain obligations; Art 25 liability transfer; deployer FRIA; documentation retention
6	ch06-conformity-assessment.md	Conformity assessment routes; notified bodies; harmonised standards; CE marking; EU database registration; AI regulatory sandboxes
7	ch07-transparency-obligations.md	Art 50 four transparency obligations: chatbot disclosure, synthetic content labelling, emotion/biometric disclosure, deep fake disclosure
8	ch08-general-purpose-ai.md	GPAI classification; 10^25 FLOPs threshold; baseline and systemic-risk obligations; open-source exception; codes of practice
9	ch09-governance.md	AI Office; European AI Board; Advisory Forum; Scientific Panel; national competent authorities; enforcement architecture
10	ch10-post-market-surveillance.md	EU database; post-market monitoring; serious incident reporting timelines; market surveillance powers; right to explanation; right to complain
11	ch11-penalties-enforcement.md	Three penalty tiers; GPAI fines; codes of conduct for non-high-risk AI; Commission implementation guidelines
12	ch12-annex-iii-high-risk-usecases.md	Full Annex III eight-area taxonomy with sub-category detail; classification rationale; dynamic amendment

Topic Index

• AI system definition → ch01
• Annex III use cases / high-risk areas → ch12, ch03
• Biometric identification → ch02, ch03, ch04, ch12
• CE marking → ch06
• Chatbot / human-AI interaction disclosure → ch07
• Classification (high-risk vs not) → ch03
• Codes of conduct (voluntary) → ch11
• Codes of practice (GPAI) → ch08
• Conformity assessment → ch06
• Copyright (GPAI training data) → ch08
• Data governance / training data → ch04
• Deep fakes → ch07
• Deployer obligations → ch05
• Documentation / technical documentation → ch04, ch05, ch06
• Election / democracy AI → ch12
• Employment AI → ch12
• Enforcement / market surveillance → ch10
• EU database registration → ch06, ch10
• Fines / penalties → ch11
• FRIA (Fundamental Rights Impact Assessment) → ch05
• General-purpose AI (GPAI) models → ch08, ch09
• Governance structure → ch09
• Human oversight / automation bias → ch04
• Importer / distributor obligations → ch05
• Law enforcement AI → ch02, ch12
• Logging / record-keeping → ch04, ch05
• Open-source AI → ch01, ch08
• Post-market monitoring → ch10
• Prohibited practices → ch02
• Provider obligations → ch05
• Quality Management System (QMS) → ch05
• Real-time remote biometric identification (RBIS) → ch02
• Regulatory sandbox → ch06
• Risk management system (RMS) → ch04
• Scope / applicability → ch01
• Serious incident reporting → ch10
• SME provisions → ch04, ch06, ch11
• Social scoring → ch02
• Synthetic content / watermarking → ch07
• Systemic risk (GPAI) → ch08
• Transparency obligations → ch07
• Value chain / liability transfer → ch05

Supporting Files

• glossary.md — ~60 statutory and synthesised definitions from Art 3 and operative provisions.
• patterns.md — 12 when/how/trade-offs blocks covering classification, data governance, conformity assessment, incident reporting, GPAI self-assessment, and more.
• cheatsheet.md — Quick-reference tables: application timeline, classification decision tree, Annex III areas, penalty tiers, requirement checklist, operator obligations, GPAI obligations matrix, serious incident reporting timelines, governance architecture.

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Scope and Limits

Covers: All 13 Chapters and key Annexes (I, III, IV, V, VIII, XI, XII) of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 as published in the Official Journal on 12 July 2024. Includes all definitional, substantive, procedural, governance, and penalty provisions.

Does not cover: The proposed EU AI Liability Directive (separate instrument, not yet adopted at source knowledge date); post-July-2024 Commission guidelines, implementing acts, or delegated acts issued under the Act; national transposition measures; harmonised standards (to be developed by CEN/CENELEC); or codes of practice approved after the knowledge cutoff.

Licence: European Union, Official Journal, 12 July 2024. Reproduction authorised with source acknowledgement under Decision 2011/833/EU. No rights subsist in the synthesised analysis beyond the source text.