Six weeks to 2 August: the final checklist
The general-purpose AI obligations arrive in August. For a Swiss SME this is a short list, and most of it is already done if you have been following along.
2 August 2025 is six weeks away. It brings obligations for providers of general-purpose AI models. You are not one, and this remains the good news covered on 4 April: the deadline produces documentation that flows toward you rather than duties that land on you.
Here is the whole list for a company of thirty.
Before August
- Send the supplier email if you have not. One per vendor whose AI feature you rely on: which model provider is behind this, and will you pass on their documentation when it is published? The 4 April post has the wording. Answers received before August are worth more than answers chased in September.
- Do the July review. The quarterly update from 28 April: refresh the tool list, add one clarification, change the date. Twenty minutes.
- File the supplier answers with the page. When a procurement questionnaire arrives — and it will, as the 9 May post set out — you want one folder rather than a search through email.
What you do not need to do
Classify your systems by risk level. Register anything. Appoint a compliance officer. Buy software. Commission an assessment.
All of these are being sold to Swiss SMEs on the back of this deadline, and for a company using AI rather than providing it, none of them is required. If a proposal arrives quoting August as the reason, ask which specific article applies to you. The answer is usually silence.
The Swiss position, one more time
The EU AI Act reaches you only through the EU market. The Federal Council chose in February not to write a Swiss equivalent, and signed the Council of Europe convention in March, with implementing law expected by end-2026.
So: if you sell into the EU, the August calendar is yours. If you do not, write that down with today’s date and file it with the page.
And after August
Nothing until 2 August 2026, when the high-risk provisions arrive — and those genuinely will not touch most SMEs either.
Which means that if you do the three things above in the next six weeks, this subject is closed for a year. That is a better position than most companies of your size are in, and it took about four hours spread over nine months.