What to do
- List the AI tools on your sites that recruit, assign work to or monitor people, including camera systems that analyse behaviour.
- Check that no tool infers workers' emotions unless it is for medical or safety reasons.
- Plan how you will inform workers' representatives before any high-risk system goes live.
What changes
- Regulation (EU) 2026/1744, the AI Omnibus, moved the dates for high-risk AI. Rules for the high-risk uses listed in Annex III, including employment, apply from 2 December 2027.
- Rules for AI in products covered by other EU safety laws, such as medical devices or lifts, apply from 2 August 2028. Machinery is now handled differently: the AI requirements for machinery will be written into the Machinery Regulation, also to apply from 2 August 2028.
- AI used to recruit or select people, to decide on promotion or termination, to allocate tasks based on behaviour or personal traits, or to monitor and evaluate workers counts as high-risk.
- From 2 December 2027, before an employer puts a high-risk AI system into service or uses it at the workplace, it must inform workers' representatives and the affected workers.
- Since 2 February 2025, AI that infers the emotions of people at work from biometric data, such as faces or voices, has been banned, except for medical or safety reasons.
Who it affects
Employers that use AI to manage or monitor people, and the providers of those systems.
Key dates
- Bans, including emotion recognition at work, apply
- High-risk rules for Annex III uses, including employment, apply
- High-risk rules for AI in products under other EU safety laws apply; AI requirements for machinery follow from the same date
Official sources
This summary simplifies the law. The text published in the Official Journal of the European Union is binding. For directives, check your national law.