Artificial Intelligence

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The Artificial Intelligence Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689) was designed to ensure that artificial intelligence (AI) developed and used in the EU is trustworthy, incorporating safeguards for citizens' fundamental rights.

Currently, the competent authorities designated under the Memorandum on the designation of national competent authorities and the establishment of the single national point of contact regarding the application of the AI Act are working - alongside other sectoral authorities - to draft the national legislative framework required to implement the AI Act in Romania. This legislative act will establish, among other things, market surveillance authorities and their powers, inter-authority cooperation mechanisms, and the sanctioning procedure applicable in the event of violations of the AI Act's provisions.

The Digital Omnibus on AI, adopted on July 24, 2026, introduces amendments to the AI Act to address specific challenges related to implementation - primarily concerning obligations regarding Prohibited AI practices and high-risk AI systems.

AI system

art.3.1. "a machine-based system that is designed to operate with varying levels of autonomy and that may exhibit adaptiveness after deployment, and that, for explicit or implicit objectives, infers, from the input it receives, how to generate outputs such as predictions, content, recommendations, or decisions that can influence physical or virtual environments"

Guidelines on the definition of an artificial intelligence system established by Regulation (EU) 20241689 (AI Act)

Actors

provider = a natural or legal person, public authority, agency or other body that develops an AI system or a general-purpose AI model or that has an AI system or a general-purpose AI model developed and places it on the market or puts the AI system into service under its own name or trademark, whether for payment or free of charge

deployer = a natural or legal person, public authority, agency or other body using an AI system under its authority except where the AI system is used in the course of a personal non-professional activity

authorised representative = a natural or legal person located or established in the Union who has received and accepted a written mandate from a provider of an AI system or a general-purpose AI model to, respectively, perform and carry out on its behalf the obligations and procedures established by this Regulation

importer = a natural or legal person located or established in the Union that places on the market an AI system that bears the name or trademark of a natural or legal person established in a third country

distributor = means a natural or legal person in the supply chain, other than the provider or the importer, that makes an AI system available on the Union market

operator = a provider, product manufacturer, deployer, authorised representative, importer or distributor

What does the AI Act establish? A risk-based approach.

Unacceptable risk

AI systems that pose clear threats to fundamental rights and contravene the Union's values regarding respect for human dignity, the rule of law, and democracy - such as subliminal techniques, social scoring, or AI systems that exploit the vulnerabilities of a natural person - are prohibited.

High risk

Strict compliance requirements for certain AI systems used in sensitive areas such as education, human resources, or medicine.

Limited risk

Transparency obligations for systems such as chatbots or AI-generated images and texts intended for public information.

Minimal or no risk

No obligations are imposed by the AI Act. The vast majority of AI systems currently used in the EU fall into this category. These systems include applications such as video games or spam filters.

Application timeline

The AI Act entered into force on 1 August 2024 and became fully applicable starting 2 August 2026, with certain exceptions:

the obligation for providers and deployers of AI systems to adopt measures supporting AI literacy for their staff and other persons operating or using AI systems on their behalf – 2 February 2025
prohibitions regarding unacceptable-risk AI systems – 2 February 2025, except for the two types of AI systems prohibited under the Digital Omnibus on AI, for which the prohibitions apply starting 2 December 2026:
- AI system that generates or manipulates realistic images, videos, audio or similar material of an identifiable natural person’s intimate parts, or of an identifiable natural person engaged in sexually explicit activities, without that person’s consent;
- AI systems that generates or manipulates material constituting child sexual abuse material or child pornography performances.
obligations for general-purpose AI (GPAI) models – 2 August 2025
rules for high-risk AI systems have an extended transition period:
- until 2 December 2027, for high-risk systems listed in Annex III
- until 2 August 2028, for systems classified as high-risk under Article 6(1) and Annex I