The EU AI Act in August 2026: What Changed, What Got Delayed, and What Small Businesses Must Do

If you followed the EU AI Act coverage over the last year you probably came away with two contradictory impressions: that a major deadline landed in August 2026, and that everything got postponed to 2027. Both are true, which is why so much of the commentary has been confusing. Here is the position as it actually stands. What happened The AI Act entered into force on 1 August 2024 with obligations phased in over several years. By late 2025 it was clear that implementation was behind schedule, and on 19 November 2025 the European Commission proposed the Digital Omnibus on AI, a package of amendments whose headline measure was a delay to the heaviest obligations. Negotiations nearly collapsed in April 2026. A political agreement was reached on 7 May, and the Omnibus entered into force on 27 July 2026. What got delayed High-risk obligations under Annex III move from 2 August 2026 to 2 December 2027. These are the use-based high-risk categories, and they include the one most likely to touch an ordinary company: AI used in employment decisions. Recruitment screening, candidate selection, performance evaluation, task allocation, monitoring, promotion and termination decisions all sit in this bucket. High-risk obligations under Annex I, covering AI embedded in regulated products such as medical devices, lifts and radio equipment, move from 2 August 2027 to 2 August 2028. National regulatory sandboxes move from 2 August 2026 to 2 August 2027. If you were racing to complete a conformity assessment for a recruitment tool, you have sixteen additional months. What did not get delayed This is the part that gets lost. On 2 August 2026, three things took effect on schedule.
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