EU AI Policy Observatory

Published document record

AI system definition guidelines

PDF source copies

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  • Official PDF — unmodified source copy

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    Download PDF — 13 pages (0.33 MB)

    C(2025) 5053 final. Final.

    Source: European Commission. Retrieved 2026-09-10.

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    SHA-256: 43202a8965f7f912987b3eef1d699fb6f201a7e984f41e91bc28674d48b4a501

  • Official PDF — unmodified source copy

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    Download PDF — 13 pages (0.32 MB)

    Exact C(2025) 5053 final Commission Guidelines on the AI-system definition, newsroom document 112455. Complete 13-page PDF ending at numbered page 12 and certification block. It is the guidelines, not the 2-page C(2025) 924 approval communication already admitted.

    Source: European Commission. Retrieved 2026-09-10.

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    Official retrieval location.

    Approved for unmodified whole-document reuse with European Commission attribution under the Commission legal notice's CC BY 4.0 default for EU-owned website content. Indicate any changes. Institutional marks remain only as integral parts of the source document; this does not license separate logo use or imply endorsement. Source reuse terms. The database metadata licence does not replace these terms.

    SHA-256: fe39f41d061184a913c32f1f92aaaa30a096858fa168c6053e22a19eef58910e

Official metadata

Official title
Commission Guidelines on the definition of an artificial intelligence system established by Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (AI Act)
Official reference
C(2025) 5053 final
Document type
Guidelines
Document date
2025-07-29
Document date kind
Document issue
Document-date evidence
European Commission · Rendered exact cover: 'Brussels, 29.7.2025' and 'C(2025) 5053 final'. — Establishes 2025-07-29 as the exact final communication's document issue date.
Publication date
2026-05-06
Publication-date evidence
European Commission · Resources index card under Guidelines: date '06/05/2026', title 'Guidelines on the definition of an AI system', and direct Download (PDF, 0.3 MB) link to guide-definition_en.pdf. The resource-specific HTML time datetime is 2026-05-06T16:22:32+02:00. — Establishes 2026-05-06 as the official publication represented by this dated Service Desk manifestation of the exact C(2025) 5053 final text. This is a later cited manifestation, not a first-ever publication claim.
Version label
Final
Legal status
Non binding
Language
en

Research classifications

These are researcher classifications used to organise and analyse the corpus; they are not official EU metadata.

Record level
Principal
Version status
Final
Temporal collection
Contemporary EU AI policy
Relevance class
Direct AI relevance
Policy stage
Implementation
Corpus tier
Core
Sectors
  • General cross sector
Policy membership
  • AI Act implementation
  • EU AI policy pathway

Classification evidence

  • Relevance class: Direct AI relevance · European Commission · Exact title and paragraphs 1-7: guidelines under Article 96(1)(f) on applying the Article 3(1) AI-system definition. — The communication directly interprets a central substantive definition in the AI Act.
  • Sector tags: General cross sector · European Commission · Paragraphs 2-6 address providers and other market and institutional stakeholders and describe an AI-system definition governing the Act's scope without sector limitation. — The guideline applies horizontally across sectors.
  • Provenance tags: Authored by an EU institution · European Commission · Rendered cover names EUROPEAN COMMISSION and labels the artifact COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION. — The exact institutional artifact supports Commission authorship.
  • Provenance tags: Officially published · European Commission · Official AI Act Service Desk Resources card dated 06/05/2026 with a direct PDF link to the exact guideline text. — The exact text has a dated official Commission resource manifestation.

Production provenance

Provenance tags
  • Authored by an EU institution
  • Officially published
Named bibliographic authors
None recorded after review
Institutions and roles
  • European Commission · Author · role evidence · Rendered exact cover: 'EUROPEAN COMMISSION' and 'COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION' above the exact C(2025) 5053 final guideline title.

Official sources and identifiers

Research assessment

Inclusion rationale
Official Commission guidance directly interpreting the AI-system definition used throughout the AI Act.
Researcher notes
Third-pass exact-version review retains the 29 July 2025 issue date and identifies a later official publication manifestation: the AI Act Service Desk resources index dates its direct link to the exact C(2025) 5053 final text 6 May 2026. This is the publication represented by the cited official source, not a claim that no earlier publication occurred.
Review status
verified

Relationships

Verification

Expanded evidence review
Verified
Reviewed by
Yichen Hao
Evidence review date
2026-09-05T20:53:39.898Z

The evidence review date is not a separate human sign-off date. Review credit and evidence-review actions

  • Last verified: 2026-09-05T20:53:39.898Z · Freshly retrieved and inspected exact 13-page official PDF (343,210 bytes; SHA-256 43202a8965f7f912987b3eef1d699fb6f201a7e984f41e91bc28674d48b4a501). The rendered cover identifies EUROPEAN COMMISSION, Brussels 29.7.2025, C(2025) 5053 final and COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION. Complete whitespace-normalized extracted text equals the current official newsroom 112455 PDF (333,765 bytes; SHA-256 fe39f41d061184a913c32f1f92aaaa30a096858fa168c6053e22a19eef58910e). No archive or first-publication claim is made.
  • Last verified: 2026-09-05T20:53:39.898Z · Fresh official AI Act Service Desk review: the Resources index has separate Guidelines cards dated 06/05/2026 for 'Guidelines on prohibited AI practices' and 'Guidelines on the definition of an AI system', each with a direct PDF link. The directly linked PDFs were retrieved and matched by complete whitespace-normalized text to the current official newsroom C(2025)5052 and C(2025)5053 PDFs. The card dates are used only as the official publication manifestations represented by this source, not as first-ever-publication claims. The card-specific time datetime values are 2026-05-06T16:20:21+02:00 (prohibited practices) and 2026-05-06T16:22:32+02:00 (AI-system definition), not a generic index modification timestamp.
  • Last verified: 2026-09-05T17:58:09Z · Official library page and English PDF confirm C(2025) 5053 final, dated 29 July 2025; the downloadable English file is Commission newsroom document 112455. Live re-review by AI-assisted reviewer on 5 September 2026 found that the page's Publication 6 February 2025 identifies the approval release and cannot evidence first publication of C(2025) 5053 final dated 29 July 2025; prior history and retrieved_at are retained.

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