The EU AI Act is here. Are you prepared for it?

With the Digital Agenda, the European Union is creating clear and uniform rules for the responsible use of data and artificial intelligence. In addition to the General Data Protection Regulation — which went into effect in May 2018 — its current focus is on the EU AI Act and the EU Data Act. The EU AI Act will be implemented in stages over the next two years, starting in February 2025, and the EU Data Act will be implemented in stages starting in fall 2025.

With these regulatory and legal requirements, policymakers want to protect society and thus create trust in new technologies. For companies, however, they mean a considerable amount of additional work. A good example is the automotive industry: vehicles, infrastructures and their users are increasingly software-controlled and networked. Mobility is increasingly being offered and consumed via digital channels and platforms. In addition, innovative AI applications such as driver assistance, smart navigation and predictive maintenance are being used to increase comfort and safety. Companies have to spend a high three-digit amount per vehicle just to ensure digital compliance.

The time required to familiarize oneself with the requirements and consequences of the various laws and to develop and roll out your organization’s strategies and solutions should also not be underestimated. “Companies should therefore already be taking concrete steps to implement the EU AI Act and the EU Data Act,” explains Daniel Andernach, Associated Partner at MHP, an international management and IT consultancy. “This is the only way for companies offering digital products, services and functions to be legally compliant in the long term at an early stage.”

In this context, clear responsibilities lie primarily with IT, legal, compliance and data protection departments. However, stakeholders from the development area are also important, as they are the ones who have to implement the legal requirements in the products, functions and services. Process-related guidelines must be created for them.

The problem: the complexity of interpreting the laws and deriving the necessary measures and requirements from them represents a significant hurdle for many companies. Well-founded specialist knowledge is necessary for truly effective, secure and legally compliant implementation. In addition, compliance organizations are often expensive, cumbersome and insufficiently networked. “The topic of compliance is often dealt with alongside day-to-day business. As a result, processes lose speed, innovations are poorly implemented and users are insufficiently empowered,” says Jose Pereira, Manager at MHP.

How to design a compliance organization

Setting up an agile and efficient compliance organization allows employees to focus on the core business. A six-step approach has proven effective in designing such an organization. A prerequisite for this is close cooperation between the company divisions. It is important to define clear roles and responsibilities and to involve and qualify relevant stakeholders. Efficiency gains can be achieved by integrating tools. The approach in detail:

1. Develop a compliance strategy

Companies should first develop the strategic direction of the compliance organization. This includes their mission and vision, which is strongly aligned with the product portfolio and its further development. The following questions are of central importance:

• Which features are on the market or in development and should inspire customers in the future?
• Which technologies are needed for this and which data is used for development and operation? How should these be marketed?
• Which legal and regulatory requirements are relevant or already in draft form?

The compliance organization should be equipped with the appropriate decision-making powers so that consistent interfaces exist across the departments involved.

2. Establish a compliance organization

This is where tasks, roles and responsibilities are defined. In doing so, companies promote transparency and cross-departmental collaboration between internal and external stakeholders, including those from the areas of development, finance, procurement, production, legal and public authorities. It’s also a good idea to set up committee organizations, create rules of procedure and establish a project management office (PMO), taking into account relevant operational areas.

3. Design compliance processes

To ensure cross-departmental collaboration between business units and company divisions, centralized compliance-relevant processes must be designed. A robust release process and the implementation of continuous improvement cycles to ensure efficiency and conformity are also important.

4. Design reporting and monitoring

In this step, essential key performance indicators (KPIs) should be defined for later reporting. Those KPIs should be aligned with the compliance objectives and serve as a basis for later reporting. At the same time, meaningful dashboards should be developed based on the defined metrics to obtain funding and support targeted reporting to relevant committees.

5. Develop skills, competencies and experiences

The aim here is to develop and design training concepts aligned with the organization’s specific compliance requirements. This is how companies create awareness of the topic and sensitize their employees to compliance.

6. Identify technology and tool scenarios

The final step is all about identifying suitable IT platforms and AI solutions for the compliance organization. The chosen technologies should enable efficiency gains, transparency and traceability. Through needs-based shoring, the company can benefit from additional efficiency gains.

Corporate digital responsibility as a seal of quality

Compliance can be a decisive competitive advantage in all industries today and a prerequisite for market participation tomorrow. Those companies that not only fulfill compliance requirements but also handle individual user data responsibly, which is generated by products, functions and services, will stand out.

In compliance management, therefore, it’s important to create a seamless end-to-end solution from design to system implementation and operation. In addition, data protection management systems should be regularly and proactively adapted to new legal requirements. Only in this way can risks be minimized and the highest compliance standards guaranteed.

MHP expert Pereira’s recommendation in this context: “We have had good experiences with outsourcing management to a compliance competence center. As a rule, such a center offers a wide range of implementation strategies, platforms and services and can take over central tasks such as user administration, master data maintenance and even employee training.”

Optionally, outsourcing can be combined with the introduction of a compliance platform. This ensures that company data is handled securely and enables teams to drive innovation responsibly while minimizing risks in the areas of security, data protection, governance and compliance. “Here, it’s recommended to choose a leading IT system that can be configured to help companies keep track of all relevant data flows and AI applications and identify risks early on,” explains his colleague Andernach. “It is also important that it allows for comprehensive automation and compliance optimization in the same environment — this can significantly reduce costs and achieve efficiency gains of up to 30 percent.”

The platform should be customized, implemented, operated and continuously optimized based on customer requirements. This reduces the workload on compliance department employees and enables them to focus on strategic initiatives and address new requirements.

Catrin Schreiner is a copywriter and the owner of the content agency Sprachwuerdig.