Direct answer
What instructions for use must we supply with our AI system? (We take it from a vendor)
This falls under Article 13: transparency towards deployers. That obligation applies from 2 December 2027. There is one exception you have to assess yourself.
This could go the other way
- The level of detail may match the intended deployer’s knowledge; trade secrets need not be disclosed.
First step: Provide complete instructions for use.
You describe: You supply a high-risk AI system to another organisation. They must be able to use it as you intended, which is only possible if you supply what the system can and cannot do. Likely role: deployer (you use the system).
This applies now
Coming up
- Article 13: transparency towards deployersfrom 2 December 2027
- Annex III: high-risk AIfrom 2 December 2027
- Article 18: documentation keepingfrom 2 December 2027
- Article 16: the twelve duties of a provider of a high-risk AI systemfrom 2 December 2027
Then you are the deployer. Your vendor builds the system in conformity, you use it in conformity: according to the instructions for use, with human oversight that can genuinely intervene, and with the documents you should receive from them. Request the technical documentation and the declaration of conformity now; without them you cannot demonstrate your own duties later, and that is a contract question to raise before signing.
Your first actions
- Provide complete instructions for use. Describe capabilities, limitations, accuracy, oversight measures and expected lifetime in comprehensible form.
- Justify the Article 6(3) exception against each individual condition. Name which of the four Article 6(3) conditions you invoke, with facts, and separately justify why the system poses no significant risk of harm to health, safety or fundamental rights and does not materially influence the outcome of decision making.
- Complete the conformity route before market placement. Select the correct assessment procedure, draw up the EU declaration of conformity, affix the CE marking and register in the EU database.
Record this
- Instructions and interpretation file
- Article 49(2) registration record for the system assessed as not high-risk
- Conformity file
recruitment and selection
Candidate recommendation that automatically becomes a decision
An employer uses a system that ranks applicants and recommends a candidate to hire. In one setup a recruiter weighs that recommendation in their own assessment; in the other the outcome is applied automatically and a candidate is rejected without anyone looking at it.
Provenance: The Commission draft guidelines of 19 May 2026 address this case when determining whether an application falls under Annex III. The document is a consultation version: non-binding and not yet final.
Assess a recruitment system on its intended purpose rather than on whether a recruiter reviews the output, because adding or removing human involvement does not change its high-risk classification.
Draft guidelines on high-risk AI classification, 19 May 2026, annex on Annex III
biometrics and identification
Face comparison at the border gate: verification or identification
An automated border gate uses biometric facial recognition to compare a traveller’s face with the photo in the passport chip. The same camera could technically also compare against a law-enforcement database, and exactly that difference decides whether this biometrics is high-risk.
Provenance: The Commission draft guidelines of 19 May 2026 state that biometric verification falls outside the high-risk classification: one-to-one comparison of presented biometrics with previously stored biometrics, for the sole purpose of confirming that a person is who they claim to be. Where the same capture is additionally compared against a law-enforcement database, it does become remote biometric identification. The document is a consultation version: non-binding and not yet final.
Test your biometric application on purpose rather than technology: the same camera and the same model stay outside the high-risk route as long as the comparison is one-to-one and only confirms identity, and fall inside it as soon as that same capture is also held against a database. Record per application what the comparison runs against, because that single design choice moves the entire regime.
Draft guidelines on high-risk AI classification, 19 May 2026, annex on Annex III, paragraph (136)
recruitment and selection
A CV filter that ranks applicants
An employer has an external recruitment system score and rank every incoming application, after which recruiters only review the top twenty percent by hand. The vendor puts the system on the market under its own name, and the employer uses it in its own selection process.
Provenance: The Commission draft guidelines of 19 May 2026 address this case when determining whether an application falls under Annex III. The document is a consultation version: non-binding and not yet final.
Recruiters keeping the final say does not help you, because once the system scores or ranks applicants and thereby shapes the shortlist it stays high-risk and no exemption applies.
Draft guidelines on high-risk AI classification, 19 May 2026, annex on Annex III
education
Application file handling at an educational institution
An educational institution uses AI for application file handling: indexing, searching, text and speech processing, translation of documents submitted with applications, and extracting, transforming and organising the collected data into a usable format.
Provenance: The Commission draft guidelines of 19 May 2026 address this case when determining whether an application falls under Annex III. The document is a consultation version: non-binding and not yet final.
Indexing, searching, translating and reorganising application files remains preparatory work, as long as the system leaves the substantive judgment on the application entirely to the institution.
Draft guidelines on high-risk AI classification, 19 May 2026, annex on Annex III
Annex I lists legislation, not products
The draft guidelines of 19 May 2026, published for consultation and expressly non-binding, clarify that Annex I AI Act does not list individual products to be classified as high-risk, but Union harmonisation legislation regulating the safety aspects of certain products. Whether an AI system falls within the scope of Annex I therefore depends on whether the system, or the product of which it is a safety component, falls within the material scope of one of the listed legislative acts. According to the draft guidelines the list in Annex I is exhaustive; products can only be added or removed by amending the scope of the harmonisation legislation itself or by adding new harmonisation legislation to Annex I. The draft guidelines also state that through Article 6(1) the AI Act does not itself extend the scope of harmonisation legislation to new or additional products, and that the AI Act does not determine or change the risk profile of a product but builds on the sectoral risk classification. Products mentioned include machinery, toys, lifts, equipment and protective systems for potentially explosive atmospheres, radio equipment, pressure equipment, recreational craft, cableway installations, appliances burning gaseous fuels, medical devices, in vitro diagnostic medical devices, and products in the automotive and aviation sectors.
Draft guidelines Annex I, points (23) to (26)
Section A and Section B of Annex I trigger different requirement sets
The Commission draft guidelines of 19 May 2026, which are non-binding as long as the final version has not been adopted, draw a distinction that is often missed in practice. AI systems classified as high-risk under Article 6(1) in respect of products covered by the harmonisation legislation in Section A of Annex I are subject to the requirements for high-risk systems in Section 2 of Chapter III AI Act. By contrast, for AI systems classified as high-risk under Article 6(1) in respect of products covered by the harmonisation legislation in Section B of Annex I, only Article 6(1), Articles 102 to 109 and Article 112 AI Act apply. The draft guidelines refer to Article 2(2) AI Act for this. Section A contains harmonisation legislation based on the New Legislative Framework, Section B the other Union harmonisation legislation.
Draft guidelines Annex I, point (60), referring to Article 2(2) AI Act
Two cumulative conditions for high-risk under Annex I
The European Commission draft guidelines of 19 May 2026, which are expressly non-binding and not final, read Article 6(1) as two cumulative conditions. First, the AI system must be intended to be used as a safety component of a product, or the AI system must itself be a product, covered by the Union harmonisation legislation listed in Annex I. Second, that product, or the AI system itself where it is the product, must be required to undergo a third-party conformity assessment. The draft guidelines state explicitly that not all AI systems that are components of regulated products are high-risk, but only the subset that satisfies both criteria.
Draft guidelines Annex I, points (27) and (21)
The Article 6(3) filter: four exhaustive grounds, to be read narrowly
According to the non-binding draft guidelines of 19 May 2026 on the classification of high-risk AI, Article 6(3) sets out four grounds on which a provider may exempt a system from high-risk classification: performing a narrow procedural task, improving the result of a previously completed human activity, detecting decision-making patterns or deviations from prior patterns without replacing or influencing the previously completed human assessment absent proper human review, and performing a preparatory task. Paragraph (88) of this draft states these grounds are exhaustive but alternative, that there is no separate independent risk test, and that they must be interpreted narrowly because Article 6(3) is an exception to rules that among other things protect fundamental rights. Paragraph (87) states the filter applies only to systems under Article 6(2) and not to systems under Article 6(1). Paragraph (89) states a system always remains high-risk where it performs profiling. Paragraph (90) adds that the filter does not apply where the system forms part of a complex system whose combined intended purpose or joint outputs materially influence an individual decision, including agentic AI. Paragraphs (113) to (116) of this draft describe that this is a self-assessment by the provider, that Article 6(4) requires documenting the assessment before placing on the market and registering in the Article 71 EU database, and that the assessment must contain at least the intended purpose, why the system falls under Article 6(2), which Article 6(3) condition applies and why, and why the system does not perform profiling. Paragraph (117) of these draft guidelines points to Articles 80 and 99 where an authority finds a system was misclassified as non high-risk to circumvent the rules.
Draft guidelines on high-risk AI classification (19 May 2026), Annex III chapter, sections 2.7, 2.7.1, 2.7.3 and 2.7.4, paragraphs (84) to (90) and (113) to (117)
ISO/IEC 12792: transparency taxonomy of AI systems
ISO/IEC 12792:2025 (Information technology: Artificial intelligence: Transparency taxonomy of AI systems) was published in November 2025 by ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 42. It specifies a taxonomy of information elements to help stakeholders identify and address transparency needs, and describes the semantics of those elements and their relevance to different stakeholders' objectives. The text was adopted as a European standard as EN ISO/IEC 12792:2025. It is not cited in the Official Journal and therefore confers no presumption of conformity under Article 40. For Article 13 the designated deliverable is prEN 18229-3.
prEN 18285: conformity assessment framework for AI systems
prEN 18285 (Conformity assessment framework) is the JTC 21 deliverable under M/613 covering the conformity assessment of high-risk AI systems under Article 43 and Annex VII of the AI Act. As at June 2026 the deliverable was at the drafting stage. It has not yet been published as an EN and is not cited in the Official Journal. Standardisation request M/613 was amended by Implementing Decision C(2025)3871 of 23 June 2025 and expires on 28 February 2027.
General interpretation, not legal advice. Checked against Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 and the Digital Omnibus (EU) 2026/1744; the official source remains authoritative.
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