On August 2, 2026, Beijing time, the European Commission's enforcement powers for obligations applying to providers of general-purpose AI models entered into application. The underlying duties had already applied since August 2, 2025; the change is that the Commission can now use tools including information requests, model evaluations, corrective measures and fines to enforce them. Available public material does not show that the Commission opened a case against a particular company, imposed a fine or ordered a model withdrawn on the first day, so the start of these powers should not be described as a specific penalty already imposed.
The EU and member states divide oversight
Rules for general-purpose AI models are supervised and enforced at EU level by the European Commission and its AI Office, while member-state market-surveillance authorities implement other parts of the AI Act. This milestone concerns providers placing general-purpose AI models on the EU market, with additional duties for models classified as presenting systemic risk. Its scope should not be expanded to every chatbot, image tool, deployer or small business, nor does a model company's presence in the EU by itself establish that it is the target of a new investigation.
Article 53 requires providers of general-purpose AI models to maintain technical documentation covering training, testing and evaluation, and to provide specified information about capabilities and limitations to downstream system providers preparing to integrate the model. Providers must also establish a policy for compliance with EU copyright and related-rights law and publish a sufficiently detailed summary of training content using the AI Office template. Models released under a free and open licence have a limited exception from some documentation duties, but that exception does not cover models with systemic risk.
Systemic-risk models face heavier duties
Article 55 adds four sets of duties for general-purpose AI models with systemic risk: model evaluation and documented adversarial testing using state-of-the-art protocols, assessment and mitigation of systemic risks at EU level, tracking and timely reporting of serious incidents and possible corrective measures, and adequate cybersecurity protection for the model and its physical infrastructure. These duties were already applicable in 2025. What changes on August 2, 2026 is the Commission's ability to enforce them, not the first appearance of the duties themselves.
Enforcement can begin with a structured dialogue. Under Article 91, the Commission may require providers to submit the documentation specified in Articles 53 and 55, along with additional information needed to assess compliance; the request must state its legal basis, purpose, required material and deadline. If that information is insufficient, Article 92 allows the AI Office to conduct a model evaluation and request access through an API or other appropriate technical means, including source code. The regulation requires a request to state its basis, purpose, reasons and deadline; it does not establish continuous, unlimited access to every model.
From information requests to corrective measures
Article 93 allows the Commission, when necessary and appropriate, to require measures that bring a provider into compliance. If a model evaluation produces serious and substantiated concern about systemic risk at EU level, the Commission may also require mitigation measures, restrict the model's availability on the market, or order its withdrawal or recall. The AI Office may start a structured dialogue before proposing measures, and the Commission may make a provider's mitigation commitments legally binding. Public sources do not list any specific company as having faced one of these measures on August 2.
Article 101 provides that, when the Commission finds that a general-purpose AI model provider intentionally or negligently violated the relevant rules, failed to comply with a document or information request, did not carry out an Article 93 measure, or refused model access for an evaluation, it may impose a fine capped at the higher of 3% of the preceding financial year's worldwide annual turnover or EUR 15 million. That figure is a legal ceiling, not a fixed penalty. The amount must also take account of the nature, gravity and duration of the infringement, while preserving the provider's right to be heard and to seek review before the EU courts.
The staged timeline still matters
The timeline has several layers: the regulation entered into force in 2024, obligations for providers of general-purpose AI models applied from August 2, 2025, and the related Commission enforcement powers apply from August 2, 2026. Models placed on the market before August 2, 2025 have until August 2, 2027 to comply. An Associated Press public report broadly grouped the Act's coming into force with labelling duties around the same Sunday milestone, but official documents show that separate chapters and transitional arrangements after later amendments do not all start on one date.
The General-Purpose AI Code of Practice is a voluntary route for demonstrating compliance and can be used to explain how a provider meets Articles 53 and 55 until harmonised standards are published. A provider that does not join an approved code or use a relevant harmonised standard must demonstrate other adequate means of compliance to the Commission; declining to sign is not itself a violation, and signing does not eliminate scrutiny. The next verifiable developments include formal information requests, model evaluations, corrective decisions, fines, withdrawal orders, court review and updates to the list of systemic-risk models. Current sources do not report any of those as first-day outcomes.