In one month, the EU gets the power to actually fine AI companies
In one month, the EU gets the power to actually fine AI companies. On 2 August, the European Commission's power to investigate and fine providers of general-purpose AI models under the EU AI Act switches on — up to €15 million or 3% of global turnover for falling short on documentation, copyright, and training-data disclosure rules that have applied for a year but carried no penalty until now. Mistral has already shipped OCR 4, a document-AI model that runs entirely on a customer's own servers, built for exactly this moment.
What it actually means
For a year, 'comply with the EU AI Act' was a good-faith exercise with no teeth behind it. That changes on 2 August. If you build or ship anything touching general-purpose AI models for EU customers — your own fine-tune, a wrapper around someone else's API, an integration you resell — this is the point where 'we meant to get to that documentation' stops being good enough. You don't need to panic-rebuild anything; most of what's required is paperwork you should have anyway. But if you've been treating compliance as someday-work, someday is four weeks away.
For a year, EU AI Act compliance was good-faith. On 2 August, it gets teeth.
2 Augwhen EU fines for general-purpose AI models become enforceable
Source: European Commission — AI Act Service Desk · Saturday, 4 July 2026