EU adopts first AI Act harmonised standard, covering only quality management

The European Commission published the reference to EN 18286:2026, a CEN-CENELEC standard for quality management systems, in the EU’s Official Journal on Oct. 14, making it the first harmonised standard under the AI Act, the Commission announced Oct. 19. Providers of high-risk AI systems that apply the standard, which is voluntary, are presumed to meet the Act’s Article 17 quality-management requirements. Nine of the ten areas in the Commission’s standardisation request, including risk management, data, human oversight, robustness and cybersecurity, still have no harmonised standard, so providers must show compliance with those on their own, ahead of the Dec. 2, 2027, deadline for Annex III high-risk systems, ActuIA reported.