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According to the existing AI legislation, providers of the general-purpose AI models have to ensure that these AI models are transparent and in line with the EU and national copyright laws. Besides, providers of the most advanced and/or most impactful AI models have to assess and mitigate the systemic risks presented by these models. To help providers of these AI models to comply with the AI law, the Commission has prepared the guidelines, which include the General-Purpose AI Code of Practice, the AI Act Service Desk and other tools to assist providers.
Background
The new guidelines were developed through a public consultation, during which the Commission gathered input from hundreds of stakeholders; they also reflect input from the experts from the Commission’s Joint Research Centre (advising the AI Office) on the AI classifications, including general-purpose AI models and those with systemic risk, etc.
While not legally binding, these guidelines set out the Commission’s interpretation and application of the AI Act, which will guide its enforcement actions.
History and concept
The AI Act obligations for providers of general-purpose AI models enter into application on 2 August 2025: from that date onwards, providers placing general-purpose AI models on the market must comply with their respective AI Act obligations.
Providers of general-purpose AI models that will be classified as general-purpose AI models with systemic risk must notify the AI Office without delay.
In the first year after entry into application of these obligations, the AI Office will work closely with providers, in particular those who adhere to the General-Purpose AI Code of Practice, to help them comply with the rules. From 2 August 2026, the Commission’s enforcement powers enter into application; then, providers of general-purpose AI models already on the market before 2 August 2025 must comply with the relevant obligations under the AI Act by 2 August 2027.
The general-purpose AI models play a significant role in encouraging innovation and uptake of AI within the EU, as they can be used for a variety of tasks and integrated into a wide array of AI systems. For this reason, providers of such models have certain obligations under the AI law.
These obligations include giving information to providers of AI systems intending to integrate the model into their AI systems and putting in place a policy to comply with European copyright law.
Main guidelines’ aspects
According to the Commission’s guidelines concerning the scope of obligations for providers of general-purpose AI models under the AI Act, a person can use a laptop displaying various AI-related icons and dashboards, including “AI” at the centre, graphs as well as cloud symbols, indicating artificial intelligence interaction.
Consequently, the guidance’s aim is to provide legal certainty to actors across the AI value chain by clarifying when and how they are required to comply with these obligations.
In addition, providers of the most advanced or most impactful general-purpose AI models, namely those presenting systemic risks, are subject to the additional obligations to assess and mitigate these systemic risks. Systemic risks include risks to fundamental rights and safety, and risks related to loss of control over the model.
Besides, the mentioned guidelines clarify the scope of the obligations and to whom they apply.
Thus, thee guidelines focus on four key topics:
= The general-purpose AI models: an AI model is considered to be a general-purpose AI model if it was trained using a number of computational resources (‘compute’) that exceeds 10^23 floating point operations and if it can generate language (whether in the form of text or audio), text-to-image or text-to-video.
= The providers of general-purpose AI models: the guidelines outline the concepts of a ‘provider’ and of ‘placing on the market’ and clarify when an actor modifying a general-purpose AI model is considered to become a provider.
= Exemptions from certain obligations: the guidelines clarify under what conditions providers of general-purpose AI models released under a free and open-source license and satisfying certain transparency conditions may be exempt from certain obligations under the AI Act.
= Enforcement of obligations: the guidelines explain the implications for providers of general-purpose AI models that choose to adhere and implement the General-Purpose AI Code of Practice, and outline Commission expectations regarding compliance as from 2 August 2025
General-Purpose AI Code of Practice: three main ideas
The mentioned guidelines are part of a broader package tied to the entry into application on 2 August 2025 of the EU-wide rules for providers of general-purpose AI models. They complement the General-Purpose AI Code of Practice*) that the Commission received from independent experts on 10 July.
Note*). The General-Purpose AI (GPAI) Code of Practice is a voluntary tool, prepared by independent experts in a multi-stakeholder process, designed to help industry comply with the AI Act’s obligations for providers of general-purpose AI models. Read more about the timeline and the drafting process of the Code. The Code was published on July 10, 2025; during the following weeks, the states and the Commission will assess its adequacy. Additionally, the code will be complemented by Commission guidelines on key concepts related to general-purpose AI models, published this July. After the Code is endorsed by the member states and the Commission, the AI model providers who voluntarily sign it can show they comply with the AI Act by adhering the Code. This will reduce their administrative burden and give them more legal certainty than if they proved compliance through other methods.
More in: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/contents-code-gpai
The Code consists of three separate chapters: a) on transparency, b) on copyright, and c) on safety and security.
The chapters on transparency and copyright offer all providers of general-purpose AI models a way to demonstrate compliance with their obligations under Article 53 AI Act.
The chapters on safety and security are only relevant to the small number of providers of the most advanced models, those that are subject to the AI Act’s obligations for providers of general-purpose AI models with systemic risk under Article 55 AI Act.
Reference to: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/contents-code-gpai
More information about the guidelines for providers of general-purpose AI models in the following Commission’s web-link:
https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/guidelines-scope-obligations-providers-general-purpose-ai-models-under-ai-act