The AI Act: A compass for approaching legislation with innovative and disruptive effects

This paper aims to provide an overview of the EU regulation on artificial intelligence (hereafter the AI Act) by navigating through its main proposals and innovations. A geopolitical framework will be provided with reference to the balance to be struck between innovation and the protection of fundamental rights and the decisions that led to the final version of the AI Act, during the inter-institutional agreement. The overview will include each risk category, including how the regulation dealt with AI for general purposes, which was not considered in the European Commission's first draft published in April 2021. In addition to the risk categories, the governance model and innovation support measures will also be analysed. The paper is addressed to practitioners, academics, policy makers and postgraduate researchers who are approaching the AI Act for the first time.