The European Commission has announced that over a hundred companies have signed the EU AI Pact and its voluntary pledges. These include multinational corporations and European SMEs. They represent many sectors including IT, healthcare, banking, automotive and aeronautics. The Pact is aimed at supporting industry’s voluntary commitments to start applying the principles of the EU’s AI Act.
The EU AI Pact voluntary pledges call on participating companies to commit to three core actions:
- An AI governance strategy to foster the uptake of AI in the organisation and to work towards future compliance with the AI Act;
- High-risk AI systems mapping, that is, identifying AI systems likely to be categorised as high-risk under the AI Act; and
- Promoting AI literacy and awareness among staff, ensuring ethical and responsible AI development.
In addition to these commitments, more than half of the signatories committed to additional pledges, including ensuring human oversight, mitigating risks and transparently labelling certain types of AI-generated content such as deepfakes.
The commitment to the EU AI Pact accompanies the European Commission’s AI Factories initiative and the Apply AI strategy to boost innovation in AI.
The AI Act entered into force on 1 August 2024. Some provisions of the AI Act are already fully applicable. The entire AI Act will be fully applicable two years following its entry into force. However, there are some exceptions: prohibitions will take effect after six months; the governance rules and the obligations for general-purpose AI models become applicable after 12 months and the rules for AI systems embedded into regulated products will apply after 36 months. The AI Pact aims to fill the gap before the AI Act comes into force. Apparently about 700 companies have expressed an interest in joining the Pact so there are more developments likely here.
