Overview
- EU negotiators reached a provisional agreement early Thursday after overnight talks to revise parts of the AI Act within a broader digital simplification package.
- The deal postpones enforcement for high-risk AI uses to December 2, 2027, and delays required watermarking of AI-generated content to December 2, 2026.
- Industrial machinery using AI will follow existing machinery safety rules rather than the AI Act, a carve-out pushed by Germany, while sectors such as medical devices remain under the AI law.
- Lawmakers also agreed to outlaw apps that create sexual images without consent and to ban AI-generated child sexual abuse material, with companies given until December 2, 2026 to meet the new prohibition.
- The compromise faces formal votes before August 2, 2026, as critics label it a rollback and several industry groups and centrist lawmakers argue the simplification still does not go far enough.