Subject Roles in the EU AI Act: Mapping and Regulatory Implications
It provides essential guidance for stakeholders implementing the world's first comprehensive AI regulatory framework, though it is incremental as it focuses on mapping existing legal structures.
This paper analyzes the European Union's AI Act by mapping its six main actor categories and their interconnected roles, revealing how obligations cascade through the supply chain via mechanisms like Article 25 to create a distributed governance system that balances innovation with fundamental rights protection.
The European Union's Artificial Intelligence Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689) establishes the world's first comprehensive regulatory framework for AI systems through a sophisticated ecosystem of interconnected subjects defined in Article 3. This paper provides a structured examination of the six main categories of actors - providers, deployers, authorized representatives, importers, distributors, and product manufacturers - collectively referred to as "operators" within the regulation. Through examination of these Article 3 definitions and their elaboration across the regulation's 113 articles, 180 recitals, and 13 annexes, we map the complete governance structure and analyze how the AI Act regulates these subjects. Our analysis reveals critical transformation mechanisms whereby subjects can assume different roles under specific conditions, particularly through Article 25 provisions ensuring accountability follows control. We identify how obligations cascade through the supply chain via mandatory information flows and cooperation requirements, creating a distributed yet coordinated governance system. The findings demonstrate how the regulation balances innovation with the protection of fundamental rights through risk-based obligations that scale with the capabilities and deployment contexts of AI systems, providing essential guidance for stakeholders implementing the AI Act's requirements.