August 2, 2026: what actually changes for your business
In 27 days the largest part of the EU AI Act becomes enforceable. Here is the timeline in plain language: what already applied, what switches on now, what comes later, and what to do if you are starting from zero.
The timeline at a glance
| Date | What applies | Affects |
|---|---|---|
| Feb 2, 2025 | Prohibited practices ban + AI literacy duty | Everyone using AI |
| Aug 2, 2025 | General-purpose AI model rules, governance, penalties framework | Model providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google...) |
| Aug 2, 2026 | The bulk of the Act, including Article 50 transparency: chatbot disclosure, AI content labels, deepfake labels | Almost every business with AI touching EU users |
| Aug 2, 2027 / Dec 2027* | High-risk systems embedded in regulated products; certain Annex III extensions under discussion | Specific sectors |
*The Digital Omnibus proposal may shift some high-risk deadlines to December 2027. Article 50 transparency is not part of that discussion: it lands August 2, 2026.
What "enforceable" changes in practice
The obligations have technically existed since the Act entered into force in 2024. What changes on August 2, 2026 is that national market surveillance authorities can investigate and fine. Before that date, a missing chatbot disclosure is a gap. After it, the same gap is a violation with a price tag of up to 15 million euros or 3 percent of global turnover (with SME caps, explained in our fines guide).
If it applies to you, it probably applies through one of these
- A chatbot or AI voice agent talking to EU visitors or customers
- AI-generated blog posts, product descriptions, images, audio, or video published to the public
- AI features inside your product (summaries, recommendations, assistants)
- Deepfake-style content in marketing, even in a satirical register
- Emotion recognition or biometric categorisation anywhere in your funnel or HR (warning: some of these are prohibited outright)
Location of your company does not matter; location of the affected people does. This is the same extraterritorial logic as GDPR.
Minimum viable preparation, starting today
If you have 27 days and one afternoon to spend, do these four things in order:
- Inventory your AI tools (one hour, spreadsheet is fine).
- Disclose on every chatbot: one sentence in the welcome message.
- Label published AI content: a visible caption plus embedded metadata for images.
- Document it: screenshots, dates, one PDF in a folder called "AI Act evidence".
That covers the enforcement surface most small businesses actually have. The full version is the 8-step compliance checklist, and ActHub automates every step including the evidence dossier.
Sources: Official implementation timeline, Article 50, European Commission.
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