Are You Ready for the AI Act?
Most companies treat the AI Act as a problem for 2027. Part of it already isn’t. Transparency obligations are already in force, and the grace period covering systems already in use closes in December 2026. Whether you’re already exposed today or preparing for the next wave, one strategy consistently fails: waiting for the deadline and hoping a policy document will be enough.
What’s Already in Force
Prohibited AI practices have applied since February 2025. Obligations for general-purpose AI models have applied since August 2025. Transparency and labelling duties — covering chatbots, AI-generated content, and biometric or emotion-recognition systems — took effect in August 2026, with a grace period for systems already on the market closing in December 2026.
What This Requires of You
The obligations aren’t abstract. Staff who work with AI systems need to actually understand how those systems behave and where they can go wrong — a requirement that’s been active since February 2025, and one most companies still haven’t addressed. Users need to know when they’re interacting with AI. AI-generated content has to be marked as such, and deepfakes clearly labelled. High-risk systems need a human who can genuinely understand, monitor and intervene — not sign off without reading. And someone inside the company has to own all of this, because “IT will handle it” isn’t an answer regulators accept.
What’s Still Coming
The heavier obligations — for high-risk AI systems — were pushed back to December 2027 and August 2028. That’s real breathing room, not a reason to relax. A governance framework capable of meeting these requirements — risk management, human oversight, documentation, accountability — takes months to build properly, and it has to be running before an inspection, not assembled the week before one.
The Structured Way There
The companies handling this well aren’t working from a checklist. They’re building an actual AI management system — the kind ISO/IEC 42001 already defines, structured and auditable by design. We build AI management systems under ISO 42001 and prepare you thoroughly for certification, with specialists focused specifically on AI governance. If you’re going to build this once, it’s worth building it to a standard that outlasts the next regulatory deadline.
ISO 42001 and EN 18286 — Not the Same Thing
ISO/IEC 42001 is a voluntary standard — you get a certificate to show clients and partners, proof of mature governance. EN 18286, published recently as a European standard, is different: once formally recognized, it gives high-risk AI systems a presumption of conformity with the AI Act — regulators start from the assumption you’re compliant, rather than you having to prove everything from scratch. The two don’t compete, they complement each other: ISO 42001 builds governance at the organizational level, EN 18286 covers the specific, per-system obligations the law requires directly. If you operate high-risk AI systems in the EU, you need both — we build them into a single process, not two parallel sets of documentation.
Not Sure Where You Stand?
We check whether the AI Act applies to your business, score your current maturity, and map out the obligations, implementation steps and certification-readiness work ahead.
Get in TouchOur Role
We run the applicability check, score your AI maturity, and map exactly which AI Act obligations apply to you and when. For companies moving to implementation, we build the ISO/IEC 42001 AI management system itself — policy, governance structure, risk methodology, documentation, training and the internal audit — and get you fully prepared for certification. Where something needs deep technical AI work or a formal legal opinion, we build the framework and hand off cleanly to your technical and legal teams, rather than stepping into either.
What You Get
A clear answer on whether the AI Act applies to you, a maturity score, and a prioritized obligation map. For those going further: a certifiable ISO/IEC 42001 AI management system, built end to end, with a clean line between what we deliver and what stays with your own technical and legal specialists.
Know Exactly Where You Stand on the AI Act
A structured assessment now costs far less than scrambling before an inspection later.
Get in Touch