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EU AI Act Compliance 2026: Lawyers, Startups & Tech

Master AI Act risk classification, high-risk obligations, GPAI rules, technical documentation & AI governance

Created byAdam Jabbar

Last updated 7/2026

English

What you'll learn

Understand the EU AI Act
Know exactly which obligations apply to you as a provider, deployer, importer or distributor, and where the lines blur
Understand the high-risk requirements: risk management, data governance, logging, human oversight and technical documentation
Understand GPAI and foundation model rules, Article 50 transparency duties, and the systemic risk threshold
See how conformity assessment, CE marking and EU database registration fit together, and when each is triggered
Understand where the EU AI Act and GDPR overlap, so you are not running two compliance programmes for one system
Know the AI Act timeline, the Digital Omnibus changes, and which deadlines realistically affect your systems
Walk away with a practical starting framework for assessing your organisation's AI Act exposure

Course content

4 sections • 15 lectures • 1h 43m total length

Introduction6:35
Work out whether this law applies to you, in what role, and on what date.
The EU AI ACT in 15 minutes12:38
The entire architecture of the Act in one lecture. Why it is product safety law rather than a technology ban, how the risk pyramid works, where general-purpose AI fits, and why the Act reaches companies with no EU presence.
Who are 'YOU' under the EU AI ACT?6:53
Provider, deployer, importer or distributor. Your role decides your obligations, and Article 25 can flip it without you making any decision at all. Covers the fine-tuning and rebranding trap that catches most startups.
The TWO Clocks7:30
The compliance timeline as it actually stands after the Digital Omnibus. What is live on 2 August 2026, what moved to December 2027 and August 2028, and why deferral is breathing room rather than relief.

The Red Lines (Prohibited Practices Under Article 5)7:33
The practices banned outright, already in force, and carrying the heaviest penalties in the Act. Includes the two new prohibitions arriving in December 2026, their carveouts, and a five-question screening routine for your roadmap.
Navigating High-Risk AI (Annex I, Annex III and the Article 6(3) Filter)6:07
The two independent routes into the high-risk regime and how to check both. Covers the Annex III uses that catch HR, credit, insurance and education technology, the Article 6(3) escape hatch, and why profiling defeats it.
Navigating Article 50 (Transparency, Your Live 2026 Obligation)6:06
Your nearest deadline. Chatbot disclosure, machine-readable marking of synthetic content, deepfake labelling and emotion recognition notice. Includes the legacy system carveout and the date it expires.
Navigating GPAI Regulation (Articles 53, 55 and the Systemic Risk Threshold)6:46
How foundation models are regulated separately from the systems built on them. The systemic risk compute threshold, codes of practice, and, most importantly for downstream builders, exactly what to demand from your model vendor and put in the contract.

Building a High-Risk Provider (Pillars and Quality Management)6:42
The full provider build list: risk management, data governance, technical documentation, logging, instructions for use, human oversight, and accuracy and security. Plus the quality management system that wraps all of it, and why you start now despite a 2027 date.
Navigating Deployer Responsibilities (FRIA and Article 26)6:04
What you owe when you only use a high-risk system. Covers the duties people most often miss, including worker notification and the explanation right, and walks through a complete worked Fundamental Rights Impact Assessment.
From Technical File to CE Mark and Market Entry5:40
The route to market in sequence. Conformity assessment, harmonised standards and the presumption of conformity, the declaration of conformity, CE marking, registration, and how to design change control so a model retrain does not trigger a full reassessment.
Navigating Post-Market Responsibilities (Monitoring, Reporting, Value Chain)6:05
Compliance after launch. Post-market monitoring, the two, ten and fifteen day serious incident clocks, how to build an incident pipeline before you need it, and the contract clauses that make Article 25 enforceable against your suppliers.

Navigating AI Regulations (Enforcement, Compliance, Path Forward)5:23
Who enforces, how penalties are structured, and what proportionality means for smaller companies. Also covers whistleblower protection and why commercial diligence pressure will reach you long before a regulator does.
The AI Act Does Not Stand Alone (GDPR, Sandboxes, AI Literacy)7:19
How the AI Act interacts with GDPR, why conformity assessment is not a data protection defence, the new route to lawful bias testing, regulatory sandboxes, and the amended AI literacy duty.
Your 90-Day Plan6:14
Everything in this course turned into a dated, sequenced programme. Inventory, classification, closing the live gap, standing up governance, and fixing your contracts, in ninety days.
Final Quiz

Requirements

No prior EU AI Act or regulatory knowledge required. We start from the ground up.
No technical or machine learning background needed. Everything is explained in plain English.
Just bring a general sense of how your organisation builds or uses AI. That is enough.

Description

The EU AI Act is now enforceable, and most organisations still cannot answer the first question a regulator will ask: which risk category is your AI system in?

This course answers it. In four focused sections you will learn to classify any AI system under the EU AI Act, identify exactly which obligations attach to your role, and build the documentation that proves compliance.

Who this is really for

You are a lawyer being asked AI Act questions you were never trained for. Or a compliance officer, DPO or AI governance manager who owns this file and needs a defensible framework. Or a founder at a startup or tech company who has just discovered the AI Act applies to your product, and you have no idea what that means in practice.

No technical background required. No prior EU regulatory experience required.

What the course covers

The structure and scope of Regulation 2024/1689, including extraterritorial reach and who is caught even outside the EU

The four risk tiers: prohibited practices, high-risk systems, limited risk and minimal risk, with a working classification method you can apply to your own systems

Annex III high-risk categories and what triggers them

Obligations by role: provider, deployer, importer, distributor. This is where most compliance work goes wrong

High-risk requirements: risk management systems, data governance, technical documentation, logging, human oversight, accuracy and robustness

GPAI and foundation model obligations, including the systemic risk threshold

Article 50 transparency duties for chatbots, synthetic content and emotion recognition

Conformity assessment, CE marking and EU database registration

Fundamental Rights Impact Assessments and where they are mandatory

How the AI Act interacts with the GDPR, and where the two regimes overlap and conflict

Penalties, enforcement architecture, and the national supervisory authority structure

The implementation timeline and what the Digital Omnibus changed

What you get

Practical templates and checklists you can use immediately, a risk classification worksheet, and a compliance roadmap you can take into your organisation on Monday morning.

Who I am

I am a technology lawyer, and a legal AI expert. I have drafted over 2,300 technology and compliance agreements, and I am the author of the AI for Lawyers series. I teach this the way I advise clients: practically, and without the academic detour.

Enrol now and stop guessing about your AI Act exposure.

Who this course is for:

Lawyers and in-house counsel getting AI Act questions they were never trained for, who want a clear working framework fast
Compliance officers, DPOs and AI governance managers who own AI Act readiness and need to get oriented quickly
Founders, product managers and tech leads whose AI reaches EU users, who need to know what actually applies to them
Risk, audit and procurement professionals who evaluate AI vendors and need to ask the right questions
Anyone moving into AI governance, responsible AI or digital compliance who wants a solid foundation in the law
Not a fit for: engineers seeking implementation code, or specialists needing deep sector-specific analysis

EU AI Act Compliance 2026: Lawyers, Startups & Tech

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Course content

INTRODUCTION AND FOUNDATIONS4 lectures • 34min

THE RISK PYRAMID: CLASSIFY BEFORE YOU COMPLY4 lectures • 27min

OBLIGATIONS IN PRACTICE. WHAT YOU HAVE ACTUALLY HAVE TO BUILD?4 lectures • 25min

ENFORCEMENTS, OVERLAPS AND YOUR PLAYBOOK3 lectures • 19min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: