The EU Council and Parliament reached a political agreement on 7 May 2026 on the so-called AI Omnibus package, sharpening definitions of providers and deployers, deferring certain deadlines by six to twelve months, and adjusting high-risk thresholds; criticism from EDPB and EDPS was softened but not fully resolved.
With developments in May 2026, the EU AI Act implementation timeline is clearer than ever, and this overview summarizes five critical deadlines between 2025 and 2027—from already-enforceable bans through GPAI obligations to high-risk requirements—and explains what German-speaking enterprises must do now.
From August 2, 2026, the transparency obligations under Article 50 of the EU AI Act will be binding; chatbots must be labeled as AI, synthetic content must be technically marked, and individuals must be informed when emotion recognition is used, with violations subject to fines up to €15 million or 3% of global annual
The EU Commission has published guidelines for GPAI models establishing a computational threshold of 10²³ FLOPs as a classification criterion; models exceeding 10²⁵ FLOPs are considered high-risk and subject to extensive reporting, documentation, and risk assessment requirements, with providers able to contest classifi
