On July 8, 2026, the European Parliament and the Council signed the Digital Omnibus on AI (Omnibus VII), closing procedure 2025/0359(COD) and amending Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (the AI Act) together with Regulation (EU) 2018/1139 (the EASA Basic Regulation). The procedure file now reads "procedure completed, awaiting publication in Official Journal"; the act enters into force twenty days after that publication.
The substance is a calendar reset of the AI Act high-risk regime. Annex III standalone high-risk obligations move from August 2, 2026 to December 2, 2027, and Annex I product-embedded obligations from August 2, 2027 to August 2, 2028. Parliament adopted the text (T10-0198/2026) on June 16, 2026 by 423 votes to 57 with 174 abstentions; the Council adopted on June 29. This is the first material amendment of the AI Act since its 2024 adoption, and it rewrites the build plan of every team that was racing the August 2026 deadline.
What moves, and under which condition?
One legal hinge governs the whole deferral: the new dates apply only if the omnibus is published in the Official Journal before August 2, 2026, the original applicability date. With the final act signed on July 8, that condition is all but met, but the formal trigger is the OJ publication, so confirm the EUR-Lex record before treating the new dates as final.
| Obligation bucket | Original applicability | Post Omnibus VII | Condition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Article 5 prohibited practices (excluding intimate imagery) | February 2, 2025 (in force) | Unchanged | None |
| Article 5 intimate imagery prohibition | February 2, 2025 | December 2, 2026 | OJ publication before August 2, 2026 |
| Article 50(2) watermarking of AI-generated content | August 2, 2026 | December 2, 2026 | OJ publication before August 2, 2026 |
| GPAI transparency and AI Office designation | August 2, 2025 (in force) | Unchanged | None |
| Annex III standalone high-risk AI systems | August 2, 2026 | December 2, 2027 | OJ publication before August 2, 2026 |
| Annex I product-embedded high-risk AI (machinery, MDR/IVDR, vehicles, aviation, marine) | August 2, 2027 | August 2, 2028 | OJ publication before August 2, 2026 |
What stays on the original calendar?
The scope of the AI Act does not narrow: every provider, deployer, importer, distributor and authorised representative placing an AI system on the EU market, or whose output is used in the EU, remains covered. The Article 5 prohibited practices core (social scoring, untargeted facial scraping, workplace emotion inference, real-time remote biometric identification) has been enforceable since February 2, 2025 and does not move; only the intimate imagery sub-provision shifts, to December 2, 2026, alongside the Article 50(2) watermarking duty. The GPAI transparency and documentation regime, applicable since August 2, 2025, the GPAI Code of Practice track and the institutional architecture (AI Office, European AI Board, national authorities) are untouched. The omnibus is a high-risk deferral plus an EASA alignment, not a pause of the AI Act.
What should providers and deployers do with the extra 16 months?
Treat the extension as build time, not idle time: conformity assessment for a non-trivial high-risk system is a 6 to 12 month, evidence-heavy process, and December 2, 2027 is 17 months away. Re-baseline every project plan on the new dates, re-classify the AI inventory against Annex III and Annex I (the classification decides which deadline applies), and keep the technical documentation, risk management system and notified-body engagement running.
Annex I providers should run the AI Act layer in parallel with sectoral CE marking (Machinery Regulation, MDR/IVDR, automotive type approval, aviation), not sequentially: the omnibus amends the EASA Basic Regulation precisely to align aviation with the August 2028 date. Deployer duties defer equally, including the Article 27 fundamental rights impact assessment, human oversight and serious-incident reporting. Watch the implementing-acts pipeline (GPAI Code of Practice, high-risk technical standards): it lands during the deferral window and fills in the operational detail.
A signal that moved from trilogue agreement to signed act in under two months reshaped every EU AI compliance roadmap.
Take advantage of this real-time watch
Next checkpoints: the Official Journal publication date (the legal trigger), the AI Office implementing acts, and the December 2, 2026 transparency sub-deadlines. Obsidian will flag each one the moment it lands.
