Brussels Starts Enforcing the AI Act on Sunday. Most of It Has Been Deferred to 2027 and Beyond.

The European Commission announced on Friday that from 2 August its AI Office, working with national authorities, begins enforcing the AI Act, and that the Article 50 transparency obligations start to apply.

What actually starts

Three duties. Systems that interact with people must disclose that they are not human. Deepfakes must be labelled. AI-generated or altered content must carry machine-readable marks. Alongside that, the AI Office gains enforcement powers over general-purpose model providers, and national market surveillance authorities gain full investigatory powers — access to systems, document demands, withdrawal orders and fines.

What is not starting

"The AI Act takes effect" is wrong twice over. Penalties have applied since August 2025, and prohibited practices have been banned since February of that year — this is a phase, not a beginning. And the contested part is going the other way: Regulation (EU) 2026/1744, in force since 27 July, defers Annex III high-risk systems to 2 December 2027, Annex I to 2 August 2028 and public-authority deployers to 2 August 2030.

There is a grace period inside the part that does start

Machine-readable marking under Article 50(2) does not bind generative systems already on the market until 2 December 2026. Anyone writing that watermarking is required from Sunday is four months early.

And the enforcers are not all ready

Only 10 of 27 member states are assessed as having advanced implementation readiness. The Commission's press release mentions no penalties at all. Enforcement beginning on paper across the union and enforcement happening are different claims.

Which fines, exactly

The headline penalty everyone quotes — €35 million or 7% of global turnover — attaches to prohibited practices, which have been banned since February 2025 and are not what starts on Sunday. The tiers relevant to these obligations are €15 million or 3% for breaching duties including the high-risk regime, and €7.5 million or 1% for supplying incorrect information. Reporting that 7% fines begin this week is quoting the wrong tier of the wrong article, and the Commission's own release mentions no penalties at all.