The EU AI Act in practice: what applies when and what UK firms must do

On 2 August 2026, two years after it entered into force, the EU AI Act became generally applicable. If you run a British company that sells software into Europe, you may have missed it. There was no single switch-on moment, no dramatic enforcement action, and the parts that had worried compliance teams most, the rules for high-risk systems, had been pushed back only days earlier. That delay has encouraged a…