AI Literacy Obligation (Art. 4 EU AI Act)

The obligation is addressed to the company as a provider or deployer, not to the individual member of staff – whether a company counts as a provider or as a deployer in a given case depends on how it uses and passes on the AI system. It applies regardless of company size: even a small business using ChatGPT for customer copy can be a deployer. The legislation prescribes no fixed number of training hours; the scope follows the risk of the particular application. Article 4 carries no direct fine – it is absent from the penalty catalogue in Article 99 – but the obligation matters in liability questions: anyone who documents training and usage policies is in a better position after damage caused by misuse of AI than a company with no evidence. The Regulation applies in essence since 2 August 2026; the penalty rules are among the parts already applicable since 2 August 2025 (Art. 113).
Note on legal status: Article 4 was recast by Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 ("Digital Omnibus on AI", OJ L, 2026/1744 of 24 July 2026) and applies in that version since 27 July 2026. The earlier wording "take measures to ensure, to their best extent" became a pure duty to promote literacy; no particular level of competence is owed. The EU AI Act Service Desk article page still shows (as of 14 August 2026) the wording before that amendment and points this out itself – the consolidated version is the authoritative one.