Takeaways from our webinar

Takeaways from webinar What’s next with the implementation of the AI Act? 

SAPIE along with the Confederation of Industry of the Czech Republic organized a webinar that focused on the AI Act and the next steps in its implementation as well as what it means for SMEs and the innovation ecosystem. This webinar was organized with the kind support of our partners: Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), League for Digital Boost and HOPERO

Our distinguished speakers represented the governmental sectors, business sector as well as ecosystem organizations, and we had an opportunity to welcome Jiří Drozd from the European Digital Agenda Unit at the Office of the Government of the Czech Republic; Matej Štefánik, Head of International Cooperation and EU Digital Legislation Unit at MIRRI; Marijana Šarolić Robić, Lawyer, Vice-President of CroStartup; Maxime Ricard, Policy Manager from Allied for Startups and Tomáš Meliško, CEO of InoCloud who lead this discussion. 

Some key takeaways include: 

• New technologies are undoubtedly having an impact on our daily lives - in business, at home, in schools, in the public sector. They present immense new opportunities but also challenges that need to be addressed. In adopting the regulations to protect consumers, markets and financial stability, it is therefore important to strike a balance, not to over-regulate and to ensure that we adopt rules that encourage innovation and further development.

• AI Act is setting necessary standards to ensure the safe and ethical AI development, however it also brings significant compliance obligations, and specifically for startups and SMEs, who are smaller players with less resources and hence, it is more difficult for them to comply with the regulations, especially those who are mostly meant for big multinational corporations.

• The whole process of negotiation is over. Next step is the official publishing expected on 12th July, coming into force in the beginning of August.  

• The implementation of the AI Act, but also other laws within the EU Digital Rulebook (around 60 laws in total) brought unprecedented challenges to all EU Member States. The EU Member States face similar challenges, such as personal, financial, institutional capacities.

• AI Act implementators will have to produce a clear guidance for SMEs whether they are within the scope of AI Act or not and if they are how they can comply.

• The governmental priorities can be to set a predictable and really well designed institutional and legislative framework, because the regulation is a key, but avoid gold-plating and over-regulation. And also since the AI Act is very broad and the whole system is very complex, the EU member states need to designate their national supervisory authorities. 

• The governmental priorities are also to professionally manage its implementation in order to mitigate its impact to the country, its market, but also to take advantage and opportunities offered by the AI Act and other Acts as well. 

• The worst thing you can do for any kind of business is to do things swiftly, because there are limited resources that businesses have at their disposal, especially when you are a startup, or small business. 

• AI regulatory sandboxes will be established and will allow businesses to test the AI regulatory environment. 

• AI creates a new governmental structures which include:

• AI Office = part of the European Commission, it is within the EC. It is about enforcing the rules related to general-purpose AI systems, and issuing the guidelines to help implement the AI Act. It will provide  assistance, provide bodies, and enable businesses to secure a certain regulatory framework. 

• AI Board - is composed of the Member States representatives and the AI Office and it is about coordinating national competent authorities, issuing recommendations, etc. 

• Advisory Forum - consists of a balanced selection of stakeholders from startups, SMEs, civil society, academia, researchers to provide expertise to the AI Board and the European Commission. This is one of the biggest positives of the AI Act and also of the utmost importance for the ecosystem. 

• Scientific panel of independent experts - AI experts to be supporting the enforcement. 

Challenges: 

• There are still questions that need to be answered that need guidance and to be addressed.

• We are all aware of the risks, the challenge is if we will be able to unanimously address them for the good of the whole EU.

• AI Office and all our bodies will have to have capabilities to identify clearly and swiftly and to give you clear direction what to do. 

• One of the biggest questions is how to make sure the AI Act will stay up-to-date. Fortunately, The EC and member states will be guided by the industry and they have the possibilities to shape the legislation. But the industry players should be aware that they can do it. 

Best practice: 

• Raising awareness about the AI Act and what it means for businesses - it is a role for public-private cooperation. we have to work together, “the world is waiting for nobody” as stated by Marijana Sarolic Robic.

• It is crucial to cooperate with business as at the end the business knows what is crucial for their systems to be viable in the European markets, it is inevitable for the success of the AI Act 

• Education of governmental representatives, businesses, is also important. There are already some national and regional initiatives in place. It is also important to inspire people to learn. It might be easier for businesses as it is part of the market, but for the government, it has to be also part of their daily agenda. 

Should you miss the webinar, you can see the recording on this link.