Insights · AI & compliance
The EU AI Act for small companies
The EU AI Act applies to companies of every size that use AI, but the duties scale with risk. If you're a small or medium company using everyday AI tools, most of it comes down to four things: know what you use, write a short policy, train your people and keep a record, and be transparent. Here's the plain-language version — not legal advice, but enough to get organised.
Who it applies to
The Act covers organisations that develop or use AI systems in the EU, regardless of size. There is no small-company exemption — but the obligations are proportionate. Most small and medium companies are deployers of low-risk AI (a writing assistant, a chatbot, an analytics tool), not builders of high-risk systems, so the heavy requirements don't land on you. What does land is a baseline of transparency and competence.
The timeline that matters
- February 2025 — the ban on unacceptable-risk uses took effect, and the AI-literacy duty began: people who use AI at work must understand what it does.
- August 2025 — rules for general-purpose AI models (the big foundation models) started to apply to their providers.
- 2026 onward — the high-risk system obligations phase in. If you only use everyday tools, this is mostly about knowing you're not in that category.
What to actually do
Four steps cover most small and medium companies.
- Make a register — list the AI tools you use and what each is for. You can't govern what you haven't written down.
- Write a short usage policy — what's allowed, what isn't, and what never goes into a public model.
- Build AI literacy — give the people who use AI role-appropriate training, and keep a record that it happened.
- Be transparent — tell people when they're dealing with an AI, and label AI-generated content where it matters.
How we help
Our AI Act pack is a fixed-price way to get the basics in place: a register of the AI you use, your role for each, a usage policy, an AI-literacy record and a transparency check. Pair it with AI training, which includes a record you can use toward the literacy requirement. It is not legal advice — it's the practical groundwork so that, if anyone asks, you can show you've done the sensible things.