This article describes the content of the regulation. It is not legal advice and not an assessment of your specific case, in particular not a statement about which deadline applies to your company.
In the summer of 2026 the business press carried one message: the EU is postponing the AI Act. What reached most companies was a single sentence, that the subject can wait. For one part of the regulation that holds. For the part that concerns an ordinary Austrian business, it does not.
The change came with Regulation (EU) 2026/1744, the Digital Omnibus on AI. It is dated 8 July 2026, was published in the Official Journal on 24 July 2026 and entered into force on 27 July 2026. It amends the AI Act, it does not replace it.
Have the AI Act obligations for companies been postponed?
The part on high risk systems was postponed. Under the amended Article 113, the obligations for stand alone high risk systems from Annex III apply from 2 December 2027, and for high risk systems built into regulated products under Annex I from 2 August 2028. For the first case the date was previously 2 August 2026.
The Digital Omnibus is an amending regulation that moves deadlines of the AI Act back and simplifies individual duties. A business that uses purchased tools, a writing assistant, a chatbot on the website or automated appointment booking, will as a rule not be running a system from Annex III. For that business the postponement changes little.
What has applied unchanged since 2 August 2026?
The duties a smaller business actually meets. The prohibitions under Article 5 and the AI literacy duty under Article 4 have applied since 2 February 2025, the duties for providers of general purpose models since 2 August 2025, and the transparency duties under Article 50 since 2 August 2026.
- Whoever runs a chatbot informs the person that they are talking to an AI system, unless that is obvious from the context anyway (Article 50(1)).
- Providers of generative systems mark generated content in machine readable form (Article 50(2)).
- Deployers disclose deep fakes and AI generated text on matters of public interest (Article 50(4)).
- Providers and deployers see to AI literacy among their own staff (Article 4).
For the marking under Article 50(2) there is a transitional period. Systems that were on the market before 2 August 2026 have until 2 December 2026. The Commission published the final guidelines on Article 50 on 20 July 2026, and a code of practice on marking AI generated content sits alongside them.
What moved is the part that few small and medium businesses have. What stayed is the part almost everyone has: saying where a machine answers, and training the people who work with it.
What changed about AI literacy under Article 4?
The wording was softened. In the amended version, providers and deployers take measures to support the AI literacy of their staff, with the Commission and the member states supporting that work. They do not have to guarantee a particular level of knowledge.
In practice the difference is smaller than it sounds. Anyone who takes measures should be able to say which ones. An hour of training with a date and an attendance list, plus one page of rules on what may go into an AI tool and what may not, is the shortest route there.
What does the postponement mean for planning?
It buys time for classification, not for waiting. Where a planned project might fall into the Annex III area, pre sorting job applications for example, the classification is better settled before rollout than during daily operation.
- 1.List which AI tools are in use, for what, and who owns each of them.
- 2.For each tool, record whether customers talk to it or whether published content comes out of it.
- 3.Build the disclosure in where that answer is yes, and look at existing systems with 2 December 2026 in mind.
- 4.Schedule the training and record it, with date, content and participants.
- 5.Hold planned projects against Annex III and, where a match is possible, set 2 December 2027 as the planning date.
In Austria the KI Servicestelle at RTR is the first point of contact for questions about the regulation. Its legal basis sits in § 20c KOG and § 194a TKG, and it can be reached at ki@rtr.at.
The effort for such an inventory stays manageable. As a guide one to three days, depending on how many tools are in use and how many of them face customers. The legal assessment of the individual case belongs with legal counsel, and so does the question whether a system falls under Annex III.
We produce this inventory as business consultants and record which tool is used for what, who owns it and what has to be marked. The deadlines with their legal basis and the date of the last check are kept on our page on GDPR and the AI Act.