Glossary · AI Act
High-Risk AI System
An AI system in a use case listed by the AI Act as high-risk, subject to the law's full compliance regime.
Explained in depth: AI Act overview
An AI system is high-risk in two ways: it is a safety component of a product covered by EU product legislation listed in Annex I (machinery, medical devices, vehicles, and more), or it falls within a use case listed in Annex III, such as biometrics, critical infrastructure management, education and vocational training, employment and worker management, access to essential services and credit scoring, law enforcement, migration and border control, and administration of justice. High-risk providers must implement a risk management system, data governance and quality criteria for training data, technical documentation, logging, transparency and instructions for use, human oversight, and appropriate accuracy, robustness, and cybersecurity, then pass a conformity assessment, affix CE marking, and register the system in the EU database. Deployers of high-risk systems have their own duties, including using the system per instructions, human oversight, and in some cases a fundamental rights impact assessment.
Why it matters
The high-risk category is where the AI Act's real compliance cost lives, and its core obligations apply from 2 August 2026. Employment and credit-related use cases catch many ordinary businesses that do not think of themselves as AI companies.