What compliance with the EU AI Act actually looks like

The EU AI Act marks the first regulation on Artificial Intelligence and provides businesses with an opportunity to lead the way in compliance.

Thomson Reuters Foundation’s new report, The Global Impact of The EU AI Act, analyses nearly 3,000 companies and shows that companies that cite the EU AI regulation perform significantly ahead of their peers on governance.

Here are five things every Compliance expert needs to consider before the EU AI Act comes into effect in August 2026:

• Fundamental Rights Impact Assessments (FRIAs) are the biggest exposure
  Under Article 27, deployers of high-risk AI systems must conduct FRIAs before deployment and notify national market surveillance authorities. Currently, fewer than 1 in 4 companies (even among non-EU citers) disclose a Human Rights Impact Assessment. This is where legal exposure is greatest and the gap between ambition and practice is widest.
• Ethical Impact Assessments need to be prioritised with the new Regulation
  Only 1 in 3 companies currently disclose an Ethical Impact Assessment, which could compromise legal integrity of AI governance.
• Supply chain compliance is becoming the transmission mechanism
  EU-based customers are incorporating AI Act provisions into Requests for Proposal (RFPs), due diligence and contracts – including expectations around conformity, assessments and timelines.
• The policy-to-practice gap is the defining weakness
  Only 12.4% of companies globally have a Human Oversight Policy, and 48% of those haven’t documented the operational processes (monitoring tools, intervention mechanisms, human-in-the-loop workflows) needed to make it meaningful.
• Technical infrastructure remains an unfinished project
  AI Model Registries, which are critical for lifecycle tracking, remain rare even among citers (21% non-EU, 19% EU) vs 1–2% for non-citers.

For business leaders and investors, engagement with the EU AI Act is increasingly a useful signal of governance maturity, operational readiness, and long-term resilience.

Find out how your company can stay ahead of the curve in EU AI Act compliance by visiting our AICDI website.