Commission guidelines of 6 February 2025 explain how to determine whether software is an 'AI system' under the AI Act — the gating question for every AI Act obligation.
What changed
On 6 February 2025 the European Commission published guidelines on the definition of an AI system, explaining the practical application of the legal concept anchored in Regulation (EU) 2024/1689. They are designed to help providers and other relevant persons determine whether a software system constitutes an AI system, and thereby which of the Act's risk categories — prohibited, high-risk, transparency-obligation — can attach at all. The guidelines are non-binding and explicitly designed to evolve with practical experience, new questions and new use cases.
Why it matters
Every AI Act assessment starts with scoping: if a tool is not an 'AI system', none of the Act's obligations apply to it. An inventory scoped on intuition rather than the Commission's criteria will misclassify in both directions — burdening plain software and missing systems that are in scope.
Who is affected
Whoever owns the organisation's AI inventory — typically compliance and AI governance leads deciding which internal tools and vendor products enter the AI Act workstream at all.
Rolescompliance teamsAI governance leadslegal teams
OrganisationsAI providersAI deployers
What to check next
- Re-run the scoping step of your AI inventory using the guidelines' criteria rather than informal judgement
- Document the reasoning for every system you classify as out of scope
- Identify borderline systems (rule-based tools, statistical models, optimisers) and record why they fall in or out
- Prepare to revisit scoping calls as the guidelines are updated
Key dates
- 2025-02-06Guidelines published
Source. European Commission — guidelines on the AI system definition ↗
Document: Commission guidelines on the AI system definition (AI Act, Regulation (EU) 2024/1689)
Verified by Trusq against this source on 4 Jul 2026. Trusq publishes only what it can trace to an official source; the source text prevails. Not legal advice.
Document: Commission guidelines on the AI system definition (AI Act, Regulation (EU) 2024/1689)
Verified by Trusq against this source on 4 Jul 2026. Trusq publishes only what it can trace to an official source; the source text prevails. Not legal advice.