2 August 2025 was an important deadline under the EU AI Act: obligations for providers of general-purpose AI (GPAI) models entered into force, provided the model is placed on the market on or after this date. The European Commission and EU AI Office have been gearing up for this deadline with recently released Guidelines for providers of general-purpose AI models (the Guidelines) and a final General-Purpose AI Code of Practice (the Code). The Code was subject to the Commission and the AI Board assessing its adequacy. The Commission confirmed the Code’s formal approval on 1 August. The Guidelines provide an interpretative framework for understanding the obligations of providers of general-purpose AI models, and the Code offers specific measures suggested by the Commission that providers can implement to demonstrate that they meet these obligations.

The Digital Services Act imposes wide-ranging and transformative obligations on online intermediaries and platforms. As has been well-publicized over the last few months, the most onerous obligations and tighter deadlines for compliance fall on services designated by the Commission as very large online platforms or very large online search engines. However, all online platforms and online search engines were required to publish information on their user figures earlier this year, and all online intermediaries in scope should be preparing for full compliance in February 2024.