The AI Act: what a Latvian company needs to do

The EU Artificial Intelligence Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689) entered into force in August 2024, but its requirements apply in stages. The amendments adopted in July 2026 — the so-called Digital Omnibus (Regulation (EU) 2026/1744) — moved some deadlines. For most Latvian companies the AI Act does not mean heavy bureaucracy, but a few things need doing now.

What already applies

• Prohibited AI practices (Article 5) — since 2 February 2025. For example, emotion recognition in the workplace or in education (except for medical or safety reasons), social scoring, and manipulative techniques that cause people significant harm.
• AI literacy (Article 4) — since 2 February 2025. Companies that use AI systems must take measures to support the development of a sufficient level of AI literacy among their staff. The Omnibus softened this obligation but did not remove it.
• Obligations for providers of general-purpose AI models — since 2 August 2025. These apply to the developers of the models, not to companies that merely use them.

What changed on 2 August 2026

From that date most of the Act applies, including the transparency obligations (Article 50). The Omnibus essentially left them in place:

• When a person interacts with an AI system such as a chatbot, they must be informed that it is AI, unless that is obvious (Article 50(1)). The information must be given at the latest at the first interaction (Article 50(5)).
• AI-generated audio, images, video and text must be marked in a machine-readable format (Article 50(2)) — an obligation of the system's provider. For systems placed on the market before 2 August 2026, the Omnibus allows until 2 December 2026.
• If you use emotion recognition or biometric categorisation, the people exposed to it must be informed (Article 50(3)).
• Deepfakes must be disclosed as artificially generated. So must AI-generated text published to inform the public on matters of public interest, unless a person has reviewed it and someone holds editorial responsibility for the publication (Article 50(4)).

What was postponed

• High-risk AI systems in the Annex III areas — such as recruitment and staff assessment, creditworthiness assessment, education and access to essential services: obligations apply from 2 December 2027.
• High-risk AI systems that are safety components of products (Annex I): from 2 August 2028.
• The Omnibus also added to the list of prohibited practices AI systems that generate child sexual abuse material or intimate images of identifiable people without consent. These prohibitions apply from 2 December 2026.

Five steps to take now

1. List the AI tools used in the company — including those staff use on their own, such as ChatGPT, Copilot or Gemini.
2. Check that none of them falls under the prohibited practices, especially emotion recognition in the workplace.
3. Introduce a short AI use policy and train staff: what data may be entered, how to check the output and who is responsible for it. This is also the basis of the AI literacy obligation.
4. If customers talk to a chatbot or AI assistant, say clearly in the first message that it is AI.
5. If you use AI in decisions about people — recruitment, assessment, creditworthiness — start preparing for the high-risk requirements now.

Check your company

Answer seven questions to see which AI Act articles most likely apply to you and from when. Your answers are not sent anywhere.

Supervision in Latvia

The institutional set-up for AI Act supervision in Latvia is still being built, so keep an eye on which authority will supervise your sector. This article is a general overview: before making decisions, check the current consolidated text of the Regulation on EUR-Lex.