The EU AI Act, The World's First Comprehensive AI Regulatory Scheme

In our last update, we relayed reports of the final roadblocks to adoption of the EU's AI Act. The AI Act has been in development in the EU since 2017 when the European Council called for a "sense of urgency to address emerging trends including artificial intelligence..., while at the same time ensuring a high level of data protection, digital rights and ethical standards." The EU sought to gain buy-in at the "Trialogue" level – the European Parliament, the EU Commission, and the Member States -- before 2024 to avoid any entanglement with the 2024 EU elections.

These concerns have apparently been resolved following extensive negotiations between the Trialogue stakeholders. The specifics of the compromise reached can be found in the Council of the European Union's memo. While we will have much more to analyze and report on for our clients over the next few weeks, this article will simply hit on a few of the highlights of the compromise.