Glossary · EU AI Act: roles
Provider (AI Act)
Also known as: provider, AI provider
Under the EU AI Act, a provider is a natural or legal person, public authority, agency or other body that develops an AI system or a general-purpose AI model, or has one developed, and places it on the market or puts the AI system into service under its own name or trademark, whether for payment or free of charge.
- AI regulation
- EU
In one sentence
Under the AI Act, the provider develops an AI system or model (or has it developed) and places it on the market under its own name.
Example
A software company that trains a résumé-screening model and sells it under its brand is the provider; the company buying and using it is the deployer.
How it applies
- Obligations: For high-risk systems, the provider carries most duties: meeting the requirements, a quality management system, technical documentation, logs, conformity assessment, EU declaration of conformity, CE marking, registration in the EU database, post-market monitoring and reporting serious incidents.
- Becoming a provider: A deployer, distributor or importer becomes the provider of a high-risk system if it puts its name or trademark on it, makes a substantial modification or changes its intended purpose so that it becomes high-risk.
- Technical documentation: The provider authors the documentation — including the instructions for use that pass information on to the deployer.
Compared with the USA, Canada and China
California's SB 53 addresses “frontier developers”, a much narrower group. China's rules address “service providers” — those offering a generative AI or deep synthesis service to the public — which puts both developers and operators of public services in scope.