Key amendments by the EU Parliament to the EU AI Act

This analysis was first published on Lexis PSL® on 7 July 2023 and can be found here (subscription required).

EU Law analysis

On 14 June 2023, the EU Parliament adopted amendments to the EU's draft Artificial intelligence Act following proposed texts from the EU Commission and the Council of the EU. In this News Analysis, partner Minesh Tanna, supervising associate William Dunning and trainee Max Rayner of Simmons & Simmons discuss the key amendments to the EU AI Act, including changes to its application, approach and the obligations imposed.

In summary

The European Parliament text sets out proposed amendments to the Commission's original draft EU AI Act (April 2021) and the Council of the EU's proposed amendments to the EU AI Act (December 2022).

There are numerous proposed amendments in the Parliament text adopted on 14 June 2023. The most significant changes are likely to be:

• new requirements for certain specific AI technologies, particularly foundation models and generative AI;
• additional requirements for providers and deployers/users of all AI systems; and
• new categories of AI system that will be prohibited or treated as high-risk and subject to heavy regulation.

Following these amendments, the EU AI Act will now be negotiated between European Parliament and the Council of the EU in order to agree the 'final form' that will become EU law, hopefully by the end of 2023. Following this there will be a grace period before organisations are subject to the EU AI Act.