EU AI Act Amendments Cheat Sheet

Free and comprehensive visual mapping of the negotiating positions | #44

Hey 👋

I’m Oliver Patel, author and creator of Enterprise AI Governance.

This week I'm releasing a new Cheat Sheet which maps and compares the negotiating positions of the European Commission, Council of the EU, and European Parliament on AI Act amendments—across eight key domains. It takes 180+ pages of legislative complexity and distils it into one graphic. You can download it for free below (it’s much better viewed on a large screen as a high-res pdf).

If you value my work and want to read a comprehensive, visual guide to enterprise AI governance implementation—with over 150 original cheat sheets like this—sign up to pre-order my forthcoming book, Fundamentals of AI Governance (2026), for a 25% discount.

Frequent readers of Enterprise AI Governance will recall that this newsletter has covered the EU AI Act amendment process in detail. Understanding and adhering to the AI Act is integral for AI governance practitioners and the organisations they support, given the uniquely comprehensive and stringent nature of this law, as well as its extraterritorial scope and cross-sectoral coverage.

As if AI governance was not hard enough already, practitioners now find themselves in the unenviable position of having to track and make sense of a raft of proposed amendments to this fiendishly complex law. Given that the AI Act only entered into force in August 2024 and is not yet fully applicable, the fact that substantive amendments are already being advanced is telling. It signals both the challenges of moving as early to regulate AI as the EU did—something which governments like the UK warned about—as well as the increasing pressure within the EU to make life easier for businesses.

Although, perhaps every AI governance practitioner can empathise with the EU, to a certain extent. Having to constantly adapt is a familiar feeling and a defining challenge of this field, given the relentless pace at which the AI technology and risk landscape is evolving, coupled with the increasing emphasis corporate leaders are placing on the importance of AI for their organisation’s future success.

Last week was a significant milestone for the AI Act amendment process. The European Parliament formally adopted its position on AI Act simplification, with MEPs voting to adopt a set of proposed amendments on 26 March 2026. The margin of approval was decisive: 569 votes in favour, 45 against, and 23 abstentions.

Following months of work behind the scenes, we now have the official negotiating positions for each of the three co-legislating institutions. The trilogue negotiations can now begin. The clock is ticking to August 2026, when the high-risk AI compliance date is due to kick in.

Each of these documents outline the respective institutions’ position for how the AI Act should be amended (via a new regulation):

• European Commission position (published 19 November 2025)

• Council of the EU (member states) position (13 March 2026)

• European Parliament position (26 March 2026)

My intention in covering this process has been to support readers with some of the analytical heavy lifting, by breaking down the complexity of these developments in a digestible way. Indeed, there are now over 180 pages of dense legislative text to wade through, in addition to 144-page AI Act itself.

Previous editions of Enterprise AI Governance have already covered:

• Why the EU is amending the flagship digital laws, like the AI Act, and the impact of the Draghi report

• A deep-dive on the European Commission’s proposal for AI Act amendments

• A comparative analysis of the Commission and Council positions

The key contribution of this week’s edition is an original Cheat Sheet, exclusively available for free download below, which compares and contrasts the negotiating positions of the Commission, Council, and Parliament—mapped against what is in law today. Although I will not do a detailed write-up of the European Parliament’s position, the visual highlights the key aspects.

Of note, both the Council and the Parliament have somewhat curtailed some of the more ambitious simplification measures proposed by the Commission (e.g., on sensitive data processing and registration of “exempted” AI systems), and have (broadly speaking) aligned on a new prohibited AI practice. Also, the Parliament is ostensibly more supportive than the Council and Commission of retaining a broad and explicit AI literacy obligation. Crucially, all three institutions are converging on 2 December 2027 as the applicable date for the high-risk AI systems listed in Annex III. Such a delay will give enterprises 16 additional months to get compliant.

This visual is much better viewed on a large screen as a downloaded pdf :)

EU AI Act Amendments Cheat Sheet (by Oliver Patel)

365KB ∙ PDF file

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Download the high-res pdf here

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Disclaimer: nothing in this article or Cheat Sheet constitutes legal advice and this content should not be used, relied on, or interpreted as such. It is for educational purposes only. Always consult a qualified legal professional for your specific compliance or legal needs.