European Commission publishes guidelines on the AI Act's AI system definition

What it is

The European Commission published non-binding guidelines on 6 February 2025 that explain how to apply the AI Act's definition of an AI system set out in Article 3(1). The guidance is meant to help providers and other market and institutional stakeholders work out whether a given software system constitutes an AI system under EU law.

What it requires

The guidelines are not legally binding, and the Commission states that only the Court of Justice of the European Union can give an authoritative interpretation of the AI Act. They explain that the Article 3(1) definition comprises seven main elements running from a machine-based system through to outputs that can influence physical or virtual environments. Under the Regulation, a qualifying system must be a machine-based system that is designed to operate with varying levels of autonomy and that may exhibit adaptiveness after deployment. The guidance also sets out system types the Commission views as outside the definition, including classical heuristics such as a chess program that can assess board positions without learning from experience. Basic data processing tools, such as a database management program that allows sorting or filtering of data based on specific criteria, are also treated as falling outside the definition. The Commission issued this guidance alongside separate guidelines on prohibited AI practices, since the definition of an AI system decides the scope of those bans. Both sets of rules, including the AI system definition, AI literacy duties and a limited number of prohibited AI use cases, had already started to apply from 2 February 2025.

What security leaders should do

Security and compliance teams should run internal tools and vendor products through the seven-element test rather than assuming every automation or analytics feature is an AI system for AI Act purposes. Systems that only perform basic data sorting, classical heuristics, or simple statistical estimation may sit outside the AI Act's scope, so inventories should record whether a tool infers outputs or simply executes rules a person defined. Because the guidelines are non-binding and subject to change, teams should track updates and be ready to revisit classification decisions as the Commission or the courts clarify edge cases. Where a system's status is unclear, treating it as in-scope during risk assessment is the more conservative default until the classification is confirmed.