The European Union has postponed most of the requirements relating to high-risk AI until the end of 2027

The ‘Omnibus’ Regulation, which comes into force at the end of July 2026, postpones the most onerous requirements of the European AI Regulation by more than a year, whilst leaving the transparency obligations unchanged.

The so-called Digital Omnibus Regulation, published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 24 July 2026 and entered into force three days later, changes the timetable for the application of the European Artificial Intelligence Act. The obligations for high-risk autonomous systems under Annex III are postponed to 2 December 2027. For AI integrated into products already regulated under Annex I, the deadline is moved to 2 August 2028.

However, this postponement does not empty the text of its substance in the short term. The transparency obligations of Article 50 remain applicable since 2 August 2026: reporting of chatbots, tagging of AI-generated content, labelling of deepfakes. The Commission's toolbox for enforcing the rules on general-purpose models has also been activated since that date.

The delay responds to criticism from companies and Member States that the requirements of Articles 9 to 17, on the supplier side, and Article 26, on the deployer side, are difficult to meet due to the lack of harmonised standards available. It gives the organisations concerned additional time to document their systems, organise human supervision and structure their risk management.