AI System

Under the EU AI Act’s terminology, an AI system is a machine-based system designed to operate with varying levels of autonomy, which may exhibit adaptiveness after deployment and infers from its inputs how to generate outputs such as predictions, content, recommendations or decisions that can influence physical or virtual environments. Legal classification depends on the system and its intended purpose. Not every automated process is therefore automatically an AI system for every regulatory purpose.

Use the term when the specific system, purpose, role and output must be bounded before governance, risk or compliance decisions are made.

The label is applied to every piece of software or only to an isolated model. The system boundary, deployer role, context, data flows and real effects then remain unclear.