Hi there,
Last week we ran a small in-person event. Thirty-nine people registered. Ten showed up.
That ratio is the editorial this week.
This week in AI
A date worth writing down. 2 August 2026. That is when the EU AI Act’s transparency obligations become fully enforceable. Eleven weeks away.
If you have European customers, European staff, European partners or European suppliers, the Act applies to you. The UK is not exempt. It is extraterritorial, the same way GDPR was. Most UK businesses have not registered this yet.
What kicks in on 2 August. Article 50 of the Act covers transparency. When an AI system interacts with a person, that person has to be told. When content is generated or manipulated by AI in a way the public might mistake for real, that fact has to be disclosed. When AI generates text published to inform the public, the AI involvement has to be made clear.
The fines are not theoretical. Up to €15 million or 3% of global turnover for transparency breaches, whichever is higher. For more serious violations, up to €35 million or 7%. A recent Deloitte survey of 500 European managers found only 26% had started any concrete compliance work.
The practical bit
The AI Disclosure Audit
Ten minutes. A blank page. Three columns.
Column 1. Where does AI touch a customer in your business?
List every place. Your website chatbot. The contact form. The AI tool that helps draft your client emails. The summary tool on your sales calls. The content marketing copy. The proposal generator. Everything.
Column 2. Is AI involvement disclosed?
One word per row. Yes, No or Unsure. Be honest. “It is implied” does not count.
Column 3. What data does that AI tool process?
One sentence per row. Customer names, email content, voice recordings, financial figures, whatever it is. The thing you would tell a customer if they asked.
Three columns, ten minutes, no software needed. The audit does two things. It shows you where you stand against the disclosure obligations coming on 2 August. And it surfaces the conversations you need to have with your AI tool vendors about data processing, which is the other half of the Act most people are not thinking about yet.
Do this once. The pattern of unsures and nos is your action list.
Go deeper
Where does regulation sit in your AI strategy?
The Seven-Box Audit covers it as one of the seven areas. If today’s editorial got you thinking, this is the next step. ~15 minutes, 33 yes-or-no questions and a maturity score you can act on.
What’s on
The sessions below ran in May 2026. For what is coming up, see upcoming events.
Build Along with AI
Thursday 4 June · 9:00am to 12:30pm · White City, London
Get your AI Strategy built out before lunchtime. Hands-on and interactive workshop.
The AI Foundry Live
Thursday 4 June · 1:30pm to 4:30pm · White City, London
Our quarterly free live event. Two short talks from guest speakers, then time to compare notes with other UK business owners over an afternoon coffee.
With guest speakers
Hannah Morris
Let’s Trailblaze
Mahdi Sharif
Humble AI
Join the free Foundry community
Peer discussion, weekly resources and first access to events and sessions. No fee, no pitch.
Thirty-nine people registered. Ten showed up.
That was our in-person event last week. The kind of turnout that should feel like a disaster for us. It does not. What is worth a closer look is the lack of engagement underneath those numbers, because that is potentially a disaster for your business.
Look at the AI events that are filling rooms right now. Demos. Tips and tricks. Quick wins. The clever thing somebody saw on LinkedIn last week. Those events are busy because they are giving people what they want. The problem is that is not what most businesses actually need. The work that sets a business up for success is the AI strategy, the AI policy and the regulatory thinking. Almost no business owner I speak to is doing any of it.
The EU AI Act is the one I want you to focus on right now. 2 August 2026, eleven weeks away. When I asked the room who had heard of it, several hands went up. When I asked what they actually meant by that, most came down. One person knew the date. Nobody had audited their AI use. Nobody had a position on disclosure. Nobody had thought about what their AI tools do with their data and whether that is something they could explain to a customer or a regulator.
Hands up if you have European clients, European partners or European suppliers. If your hand is up, the Act applies to you. Treat it the way you treated GDPR. Get ahead of it now or scramble in July.
Hit reply and tell me where your business sits on the EU AI Act question. We read every one.
Know someone with European customers who has not thought about this yet? Forward this on. That’s how this list grows.
Understand first. Then act.
Richard