AI TRAINING
EU AI Act Essentials for SMEs
Leave with a clear compliance checklist and confidence to meet EU AI Act obligations without legal overhead.
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Run the diagnostic →What it covers
A focused one-day workshop covering the EU AI Act provisions most relevant to small and medium-sized enterprises. Participants learn to classify their AI use cases by risk tier, identify documentation and transparency obligations, and understand prohibited practices and enforcement timelines. The session combines short expert-led modules with hands-on exercises mapping real AI tools in use at participants' organisations to the Act's requirements.
What you'll be able to do
- Classify your organisation's AI use cases into the correct EU AI Act risk categories
- Identify which documentation and transparency obligations apply to your specific situation
- Spot prohibited AI practices in vendor products and internal deployments
- Complete a prioritised compliance action plan using the provided SME checklist
- Formulate the right contractual questions to ask AI tool vendors before signing
Topics covered
- AI Act risk categories: unacceptable, high, limited, and minimal risk explained for SMEs
- Identifying which of your current AI tools fall under each risk tier
- Documentation obligations: technical files, conformity assessments, and record-keeping
- Transparency requirements: user disclosure and human oversight obligations
- Prohibited AI practices and how to spot them in vendor offerings
- Enforcement timeline and grace periods, what to prioritise now vs. later
- Practical compliance checklist tailored to SME resources
- Engaging with AI vendors: questions to ask and clauses to seek in contracts
Delivery
Delivered in-person or via live virtual classroom (half-day split across two sessions also available). Participants receive a pre-workshop AI inventory template to complete in advance. Roughly 40% lecture, 60% guided exercises and group discussion. Materials include a printed or digital SME compliance checklist, risk classification decision tree, and a curated list of official EU resources and national contact points.
What makes it work
- Completing an AI inventory before the workshop so exercises map directly to real tools in use
- Involving both a business lead and an ops or IT referent to cover deployment context and tooling
- Assigning a named internal owner for the compliance checklist within two weeks of the session
- Scheduling a 90-day review to update the inventory as new AI tools are adopted
Common mistakes
- Assuming the AI Act only applies to large tech companies or AI developers, and ignoring obligations as a deployer
- Treating all AI tools as low-risk by default without performing a documented risk classification
- Waiting for full enforcement before acting, missing early obligations such as prohibited practice bans already in force
- Delegating compliance entirely to an external lawyer without building internal awareness among decision-makers
When NOT to take this
A startup that has not yet deployed any AI tool and is purely in the ideation phase; they would benefit more from a general AI strategy session than a compliance-focused workshop.
Providers to consider
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