What Brussels published yesterday, and what it changes
The 2 February guidance arrived. As predicted, it requires nothing of a Swiss SME — but one part of it will quietly improve your life later this year.
The Commission’s 2 February deadline passed yesterday. Guidance on how high-risk AI systems are classified is now published, alongside the first review of the practices prohibited outright since February 2025.
Last Wednesday this blog said neither would require anything of a Swiss SME. That held. Here is the slightly more interesting part.
Why the classification guidance matters indirectly
Since 2024 the biggest practical problem with the AI Act has not been its obligations but its ambiguity. Nobody could say with confidence which systems fell into the high-risk category, which meant procurement departments asked suppliers broad, nervous questions and suppliers gave broad, defensive answers.
An authoritative reference changes the tone of that exchange. Over the coming months expect customer questionnaires to get shorter and more specific, because the people writing them will finally be able to cite something.
That is a genuine improvement, it costs you nothing, and it arrives on its own.
What to do with it
Nothing, except to notice when it shows up. If a customer sends you an AI questionnaire this spring that is noticeably more precise than the ones you saw last year, that is this guidance reaching you through the supply chain, which is the only route by which European rules reach most Swiss SMEs.
Your answer to such a questionnaire is still the one-page record from 28 October: what you use, what goes into it, who decided, what you checked.
The oddity worth keeping in mind
Guidance has now been published for obligations whose start date the Commission itself proposed in November to postpone. The regime is being explained and rescheduled at the same time.
That is not a criticism — it is what happens when standards work runs behind a legislative calendar — but it is the concrete reason this blog keeps advising against buying anything against these dates. The dates are still moving.
Next EU date to note
None that requires action. The negotiation over the November proposal continues through this year, and this blog will report the outcome rather than the process.