Standardization For Compliance In The European Union's AI Act

This blog post discusses harmonized standards, common specifications, and certificates in the EU's Artificial Intelligence Act ("AI Act"). We also discuss the role of the authorities responsible for appointing conformity assessment bodies and how the latter must perform their activities.

Standardization is expected to play a key role in providing technical solutions to ensure compliance with the AI Act given the complexity of the Act's requirements and the technology. Many stakeholders are therefore closely following and sometimes involved in the development of standards in the field. This is, however, no easy task, and it will require significant efforts to have standards ready for use by August 2026, when most of the AI Act's provisions will come into effect (see our blog post on critical milestones on the road to full applicability of the AI Act for more detail). The European Committee for Standardization and the European Electrotechnical Committee for