The European Union’s recently adopted Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act is the first comprehensive legal framework specifically on AI. This is particularly important for the healthcare domain, as other existing harmonisation legislation, such as the Medical Device Regulation, do not explicitly cover medical AI applications. Given the far-reaching impact of this regulation on the medical AI sector, this commentary provides an overview of the key elements of the AI Act, with easy-to-follow references to the relevant chapters.

The newly adopted EU AI Act represents a pivotal milestone that heralds a new era of AI regulation across industries. With its broad territorial scope and applicability, this comprehensive legislation establishes stringent requirements for AI systems. In this article, we analyze the AI Act’s impact on digital medical products, such as medical devices: How does the AI Act apply to AI/ML-enabled medical devices? How are they classified? What are the compliance requirements? And, what are the obligations of ‘providers’ of these AI systems? After addressing these foundational questions, we discuss the AI Act’s broader implications for the future of regulated digital medical products.