Eu AI Act: First Requirements Became Legally Binding -

As of Feb. 2, 2025, the first few requirements of the EU’s AI Act are legally binding. Businesses operating in the region that do not abide by these requires

Certain Ai Use Cases are not not allowed, including using it to manipulate behavior and cause harm, for example, to teenagers. However, kirsten rulf, co-author of the eu a act and partner at bcg, said that these are applicable to “very few” companies.

Other examples of now-priced ai practices include:

AI “Social Scoring” that causes unjust or disparts harm.
Risk Assessment for Predicting Criminal Behavior Based Soly On Profiling.
Unauthorized Real-Time Remote Biometric Identification by Law Enforcement in Public Speaks.

“For example, banks and other financial institutions using ai must carefully ensure that their creditworthness assessments do not fall in the category of social Scoring,” Rulf Said. Read the completete List of prohibited practices via the eu’s ai act,

In addition, the act now requires staff at companies that eater provide or use ai systems will need to have “A Sufficient Level of Ai Literacy.” This will be achieved through eater training internal or hiring staff with the appropriate skillset.

“Business Leaders must ensure their workforce is ai-Literate at a Functional Level and Equipped With Preliminary Ai Training to Foster An Ai-Driven Culture,” Rulf said in a statement.

See: Techrepublic Premium’s Ai Quick Glossary

The next millstone for the ai act will come at the end of April, when the european commission will likely publish the final code of practice for general purpose ai models, according to rulf. The code will become effective in August, as will the power of member state supervisory authorities for enforcing the act.

“Between now and then, Businesses Must Demand Supicient Information from AI Model Providers to Deploy Ai Responsibly and Work Collabornly With Providers, PolicyMakers, And Regulators to Regulators to Egulators , “Rulf advised.

Ai act is not stifling innovation but allows it to scale, according to its co-author

While many have criticized the ai act, as well as the strict approach the eu has been regulating tech companies in general, rulf said during a bcg roundable for the pressure ew era in ai Scaling. “

“(The act) brings the guardrails and quality and risk management framework into place that it needs to scale up,” She said. “It’s not stifling innovation… It’s enabling the scaling of ai innovations that we all want to see.”

She added that ai inharently come with risks, and if you scale it up, the efficiency benefits will suffer and endanger the reputation of the business. “The ai act provides you with a real good blueprint of how to tackle these risks, of how to tackle these quality issues, before they owned,” She said.

According to BCG, 57% of European Companies Cite Uncertainty Surrounding ai Regulations as an obstacle. Rulf Acknowledged that the current definition of ai that falls under the ai act “cannot be operationalized easily” believes it’s so broad, and was written ashwa to be consistent with internal guideline.

“The difference in how you interpret that ai definition for a bank is the difference between 100 models Falling under that regulation, and 1,000 models plus Falling Under That Regulation,” SAI SID. “That, of courses, makes a huege differentce bot for capacity costs, bureaucracy, scrutiny, but also can even policy makers keep up with all of that?”

Rulf stressed that it is important businesses engage with the eu ai office with standards for the ai act that are yet to be phased in are still being drwn up. This means that policmakers can develop them to be as practical as possible.

See: What is the eu’s ai office? New body formed to oversee the rollout of general purpose models and ai act

“As a regulator and policy maker, you do not hear these Voices,” She Said. “You cannot deregulate if you don’t know where the big problems and stepping stones are… I can only encourage everyone to really be as blunt as poses

Regardless of Criticism, Rulf said the ai act has “Evolved into a global standard” and that it has been copycated bot in asia and in certain us states. This means many companies may not find it too taxing to comply if they have alredy adopted a responsible ai program to Abide with other regulations.

See: Eu AI Act: Australian it Pros need to prepare for ai regulation

More than 100 Organisations, Including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Openai, have already signed the Eu ai pact And Volunteered to start implementing the act’s requirements ahead of legal deadlines.