The EU AI Act has long been discussed as a piece of future regulation. By August 2026, however, the situation has changed. The EU AI Act has now been in force for two years, and a significant part of its obligations has already become applicable. The Act has also already been amended. Among other things, the AI Omnibus, which entered into force in July 2026, postponed the application dates of certain obligations concerning high-risk AI systems.
From a company perspective, the situation is twofold. Some obligations, such as the requirements concerning prohibited AI practices and transparency, already apply. By contrast, companies still have time to prepare for the most extensive obligations relating to high-risk AI systems. Nevertheless, companies should already map how they use AI, identify use cases that are specifically regulated, and ensure that their internal processes and contracts support compliance with the applicable requirements.
Which obligations under the AI Act already apply?
The first significant obligations under the AI Act became applicable in February 2025. These included, among other things, the provisions on prohibited AI practices. Obligations relating to AI literacy among personnel also began to apply. The AI literacy provision was eased in July 2026, but companies that provide or use AI systems are still required to take measures to support their personnel’s AI competence.
Since August 2025, providers of general-purpose AI models have been subject to specific obligations. This part of the regulation primarily concerns developers and providers of AI models. An ordinary company that, for example, purchases an AI tool available on the market or uses a ready-made third-party AI model as part of its own SaaS service will therefore generally not be directly subject to these obligations. The key is to identify the company’s own role in the AI value chain.
Another significant set of requirements became applicable at the beginning of August 2026: the AI Act’s transparency requirements. For example, in certain situations users must be informed that they are interacting with an AI system rather than a human. AI-generated or manipulated content is also subject to new requirements concerning its detectability and labelling.
When will the obligations concerning high-risk AI systems begin to apply?
One of the key areas covered by the AI Act concerns high-risk AI systems. These may include, for example, certain systems used in recruitment, employee evaluation, education, critical infrastructure or biometric identification.
However, the timetable for these systems has changed from the original schedule. The AI Omnibus, which entered into force in July 2026, postponed the application of the obligations concerning high-risk systems referred to in Annex III of the AI Act until 2 December 2027. For high-risk AI systems incorporated into regulated products, such as certain machinery and other physical products, the new deadline is 2 August 2028.
The additional time does not mean that companies should wait before starting preparations. Requirements imposed on providers of high-risk systems concern, among other things, risk management, documentation, data governance, logging, human oversight and conformity assessment. Deployers are also subject to obligations relating, for example, to following the instructions for use, ensuring human oversight, retaining logs in certain situations, monitoring the use of the system and reporting serious incidents. Companies should begin preparing these practical processes well in advance. Building processes afterwards is often significantly more difficult than taking the requirements into account already when developing a system or planning its deployment.
How should companies prepare for the AI Act in 2026?
A natural first step for every company is to determine where and how AI is being used within the organization. In many organizations, the use of AI has developed rapidly without any centralized overview. The marketing team may be using one tool, HR another, customer service may be testing an AI assistant, while at the same time a business unit is purchasing a new system with embedded AI functionality. From the perspective of the AI Act, these use cases may have very different implications.
In practice, one of the most common use cases encountered in companies relates to HR and recruitment. Particular care is needed here because AI used, for example, to assess or select job applicants or to evaluate employee performance may fall within the category of high-risk AI systems. A solution that appears to be an ordinary efficiency-enhancing HR tool may therefore create considerably broader obligations under the AI Act than the company initially expects. In addition to the requirements of the AI Act, other applicable legislation must naturally also be taken into account, including data protection and employment law requirements.
When mapping their use cases, companies should ensure that systems are used in accordance with their intended purpose. If a deployer makes a substantial modification to a system or changes its intended purpose so that the system becomes high-risk – for example, because it is unexpectedly repurposed for an HR use case – the deployer may be regarded as the provider of the system under the AI Act. An ordinary company using AI will generally not have the capabilities required to register the system, demonstrate conformity, maintain an extensive quality management system, or fulfill the other obligations of a high-risk system provider. These situations should therefore be identified and prevented in advance. Generally, for a high-risk use case, a company should procure a system that the provider has expressly intended for that purpose and appropriately registered as a high-risk AI system.
At this stage, companies should establish a sufficient overall understanding of the AI systems they currently use or plan to use, their intended purposes, and the company’s role in relation to each system. This mapping can be used to identify potentially prohibited use cases, transparency obligations and high-risk applications, as well as to ensure that contracts support regulatory compliance.
In contracts, particular attention should be paid to the availability of necessary documentation, permitted uses, the use of data, change management, and responsibility for regulatory changes and the related costs. Measures supporting personnel’s AI literacy, such as training and internal guidance, should also be proportionate to the identified use cases and their risk classifications.
The time for waiting is coming to an end
The AI Act continues to become applicable in stages, and companies do not need to resolve every issue at once. By August 2026, however, the regulation is no longer something waiting on the horizon: it is already part of today’s compliance requirements. The European Commission and national authorities have begun enforcing the applicable obligations, and the next major deadlines are already in sight.
Companies should therefore ensure now that their use of AI, internal processes and contractual arrangements provide a sufficiently solid foundation for both current and upcoming obligations.
We are happy to assist with questions relating to the application of the AI Act, the assessment and risk classification of AI system use cases, and contracts concerning AI.
Katri Aarnio
Counsel
+358 50 306 2031
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AI tools are developing at a remarkable pace. Not long ago, an AI-generated image was easy to recognise, but today, the best AI-generated images are so convincing that they can be indistinguishable from genuine photographs. AI can also be used to produce text, audio and video, offering creative industry professionals significant opportunities to accelerate content production and develop new forms of expression.
At the same time, the use of AI raises numerous legal questions. In this blog post, I discuss the legal considerations that companies operating in the creative industries should take into account before introducing AI tools and using them as part of their creative work.
Who owns AI-assisted content, and how can it be protected?
A key question is whether the creator obtains an exclusive right to use and license material produced with the assistance of AI, or whether the result remains freely available for anyone to use. There is no straightforward answer, as it depends on the extent of the human creator’s own creative contribution to the work.
Copyright belongs to the person who creates a work, provided that the work is sufficiently independent and original. Copyright protection always requires a creative contribution by a human, and the assessment is made on a case-by-case basis. Copyright never protects an idea as such, but only the specific form in which the idea is expressed.
When a creative professional uses AI as a tool in their work, the existence of copyright is assessed according to these same principles. Copyright does not arise where a person gives the AI only a general instruction and the AI produces the final content entirely without any creative contribution from the user.
The situation is different if AI is used as part of a broader creative process. If the creator uses AI, for example, to support brainstorming, then creates the content themselves and uses AI only for final refinements, the work is likely to contain enough of the creator’s own creative contribution to qualify for copyright protection.
The use of AI should also be documented in case of potential disputes. Retaining the creator’s own drafts and the prompts used can make it easier to demonstrate which parts of the final result are based on human creative work.
If content is created using generative AI and the result does not qualify for copyright protection, protection may in some cases also be sought through trademarks. For example, Moomin Characters has protected Moomin characters as trademarks. However, it is important to note that a trademark only provides protection in specified classes of goods and services and within a particular geographical area. It does not protect the creative content as such. Its scope and purpose therefore differ from those of copyright protection.
If a creative project involving extensive use of generative AI is being planned, trademark protection may nevertheless be worth considering alongside copyright as a complementary form of protection.
Can AI-generated material be used freely?
Material created with AI is not automatically free from third-party rights. The key questions are which AI service was used to produce the material and how liability has been allocated in the service’s terms of use.
Some AI services use only licensed training data or other material that is not protected by copyright and contractually assume responsibility for ensuring that the materials generated by the AI do not infringe third-party copyrights. In such cases, the service provider bears responsibility for the output to the extent agreed in the terms of use, and the user’s legal risk is substantially lower.
Many widely used services, however, have been trained on extensive datasets collected from the internet, which may also contain copyright-protected material. In most services, the service provider does not contractually assume responsibility for ensuring that the generated content does not infringe third-party rights. Instead, responsibility for using the content remains with the user. Material produced using such services therefore requires careful review before publication.
In summary, there is no universally applicable answer as to whether AI-generated materials may be used freely. The allocation of responsibility depends primarily on the service used and its terms of use, which should be reviewed before AI is introduced as part of content production.
Can confidential information be entered into an AI service?
As a general rule, confidential information should not be entered into an AI service unless the service is specifically intended for business use and its terms and information security have been carefully assessed.
For business purposes, companies should use business or enterprise versions of generative AI services unless they operate a local AI solution on their own servers. In consumer services, such as the free and Plus versions of ChatGPT, materials and prompts entered into the service may, in accordance with the terms of use, be used to train the AI model. In addition, the service provider may reserve broad rights to use and even share material uploaded by users for purposes other than AI model training.
This means that if a company’s employees use consumer licences in their work, they may compromise the confidentiality of information by entering confidential material into the service.
The practical risk may arise, for example, where a screenwriter or copywriter uses a free consumer AI service to refine a text and enters an unpublished script or campaign concept into the service. Under consumer licences, the content may be used to develop AI models, meaning that the material is no longer under the company’s exclusive control. Even if the content does not appear elsewhere in an identical form, there is a risk that recognisable features of the material may be used as part of outputs generated for other users.
It is also important to note that other risks do not disappear even if the use of content for training purposes can be prohibited separately in the service settings or terms of use. Under consumer licences, service providers often do not provide binding guarantees regarding the security of the service. Information entered into the service may therefore be exposed to data breaches or other information security incidents. Protecting confidential information requires selecting a licence suitable for business use and assessing the service’s terms and information security before introducing the AI service.
Can personal data be entered into an AI service?
If personal data, such as a person’s image, voice or name, is entered into an AI service, the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, applies.
The company is responsible for ensuring that the licensing terms of the AI service have been carefully assessed. As part of its compliance with the GDPR, the company must ensure, among other things, that material uploaded to the service is not used to train the AI, that it is possible to enter into the data processing agreement required by the GDPR with the service provider, and that the AI service provides appropriate security for the protection of personal data. In practice, the use of an AI service will generally also require a data protection impact assessment.
The use of AI services under free consumer licences will generally not comply with the GDPR, as service providers often also use uploaded material for their own purposes.
Is it permissible to use AI to generate images or voices of real people?
Particular attention is also required where AI is used to produce images of real people or to create AI-generated copies of a real person’s voice. A person’s image, voice and other identifying features constitute personal data. AI-generated material may also be considered personal data if a specific individual can be identified from it. In such cases, all GDPR requirements apply, including the requirement to inform the individual about the processing of their personal data and the requirement to have a lawful basis for the processing.
In content production, it is also important to recognise that using a person’s image or voice for commercial purposes requires that person’s consent. In 2025, the Helsinki Court of Appeal ordered an underwear company to pay Jasper Pääkkönen EUR 300,000 in compensation for the unauthorised use of his name, image and voice in an extensive advertising campaign. The judgment is not yet final, and the Supreme Court has granted leave to appeal. The obligation to obtain consent also applies where the person’s image or voice has been generated using AI.
When must AI-generated content be labelled as a deepfake?
The EU’s new AI Act introduces transparency requirements concerning deepfakes. The Act will become applicable gradually, and the provisions concerning deepfakes will apply from 2 August 2026.
Deepfakes are AI-generated or AI-manipulated image, audio or video content that resembles existing people, objects, places, entities or events and may falsely appear to the recipient to be authentic or truthful. The transparency obligation is therefore not limited to deepfakes depicting people.
Under the AI Act, deepfakes must be clearly labelled as having been artificially generated or manipulated. However, the Act includes an exception for creative works. Where the content forms part of an evidently artistic, creative, satirical, fictional or similar work or programme, the disclosure may be made in a manner that does not interfere with the display or enjoyment of the work.
For example, a documentary-style television production may use highly realistic AI-generated images or videos to illustrate historical events. If the context does not otherwise indicate that the material is artificial, viewers may believe it to be genuine archival footage. In such a case, the transparency obligation under the AI Act must generally be considered. However, the exception for creative works allows the use of AI to be disclosed in a manner appropriate to the nature of the work, for example in the programme’s end credits, provided that the audience is not left with a false impression of the authenticity of the content.
A breach of the transparency obligation concerning deepfakes may result in an administrative fine under the AI Act.
Checklist for creative industry professionals
Rights: ensure that your own creative contribution is sufficient if you want the final result to qualify for copyright protection.
Documentation: document the use of AI and your own creative contribution.
Terms of use: review the service terms and determine what rights you receive to the generated content and who is responsible for potential infringements.
Business-level licences: only use business-level licences for professional purposes and enter into a data processing agreement where necessary.
GDPR and consent: using a person’s image or voice requires compliance with data protection rules and, for commercial use, the person’s consent.
Deepfakes: if content has been artificially generated or manipulated, ensure that the disclosure requirements of the AI Act are met.
Would you like to discuss the legal questions surrounding AI? We help companies assess the legal risks and opportunities associated with the use of AI in the creative industries and in other AI-enabled business operations.
Lila Kallio Counsel
+358 41 465 1365
Katri Aarnio Counsel
+358 50 306 2031
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Updated: Aug 5
Imagine a situation in which AI screens hundreds of job applications in a matter of minutes and recommends the best candidates for interview, or optimises a complex shift schedule while taking into account the needs and preferences of thousands of employees. This is no longer distant wishful thinking, but a reality in many organisations. According to research, 52 per cent of Finnish organisations use AI solutions in HR tasks. Although adoption is still fragmented, the potential is enormous: AI can make recruitment, onboarding and offboarding processes more efficient, facilitate the allocation of shifts and tasks, support performance management and produce more advanced people analytics.
However, AI is only as capable as its users. Using intelligent tools effectively requires HR professionals and managers to be trained and to understand the applicable ground rules so that the benefits can be achieved responsibly and sustainably. At the same time, more is required from employers: the use of AI raises legal, ethical and practical questions that cannot be resolved merely by producing an AI strategy document. Legislation is imposing increasing obligations on the use of AI, most recently through the EU AI Act, which sets requirements for both providers and users of AI applications.
Introducing AI: needs, risks and employee participation
An employer must address several important issues before introducing an AI system into HR management. The first step is to identify the need for which AI is intended to be used and assess the associated risks. Employment and data protection legislation in particular require employers to assess in advance how new technology may affect employees. If, for example, an AI-based tool supporting recruitment is to be introduced, this concerns the very core of processing job applicants’ personal data. The employer must identify and justify why personal data is processed, how and to what extent it is used, and what changes the AI system may require in existing practices or in the information provided to applicants. Data protection legislation requires, among other things, an assessment of risks relating to personal data, including a data protection impact assessment where applicable, before new technology is introduced, regardless of whether the technology uses AI. In practice, the use of AI systems in HR almost automatically means that risks to employees’ privacy must be identified and the necessary safeguards determined in advance. Fully automated decision-making in recruitment, such as screening job applications without any human involvement in the final decision, is generally prohibited under data protection legislation. The recruiter must therefore always retain a meaningful role in the process.
Employers also have cooperation obligations when the organisation’s operations are developed by introducing new technology. Every organisation employing at least 20 people must engage in dialogue with its personnel to safeguard employees’ opportunities to influence matters affecting them. The introduction of AI-based solutions in HR is clearly such a matter and should be discussed with personnel well in advance. Employers with more than 50 employees are also subject to an express, simplified change negotiation obligation when introducing new technology. If AI is expected to reduce the need for labour or materially alter employees’ duties, more extensive change negotiations must be conducted with personnel before implementation. All these cooperation procedures must take place at the appropriate time, meaning before procurement decisions are made, in order to meet the requirements of the Act on Co-operation within Undertakings.
The Occupational Safety and Health Act also applies to the introduction of AI in the workplace. A central principle of the Act is that employers must identify work-related hazards and harmful factors and address them proactively. AI may introduce new dimensions to traditional occupational safety considerations: what kinds of risks and strain may arise from its introduction, and how should they be prevented? Learning to use new technology may, for example, place a psychological burden on employees, while concerns about their rights may cause stress when AI becomes involved in HR processes and managerial work. Employers must assess these risks as well and provide appropriate induction, support and measures to safeguard employee wellbeing during the change.
It is already widely recognised that the use of AI presents challenges for non-discrimination in working life. Under the Non-Discrimination Act, an employer may not treat employees or job applicants differently on discriminatory grounds such as age, gender or another personal characteristic. Because AI learns and draws conclusions from the data provided to it, it may absorb biases hidden in that data. A recruitment algorithm may, for instance, favour applicants on the basis of gender rather than merit. If most people recruited in the past have been of a particular gender, the AI system may interpret this as a “model of success”. Eliminating discriminatory bias from AI is difficult because algorithms are often opaque to users and their decision-making may be difficult to explain. On the basis of the current Government Programme, a research project has been launched in Finland’s public administration to identify and prevent discrimination risks associated with AI.
The EU AI Act will gradually tighten the requirements
The European Union has also entered the field of AI regulation. The EU AI Act entered into force in summer 2024 and introduces new requirements for the use of AI. Since February 2025, organisations have already been required to ensure that their personnel have an adequate level of AI literacy. AI literacy refers to employees’ ability to assess AI-generated outputs critically and to use AI responsibly and appropriately.
Further obligations will follow from August 2026, when the core risk-based requirements of the AI Act begin to apply. The Act distinguishes between four categories: prohibited AI practices, high-risk systems, limited-risk systems and minimal-risk systems. This will be a significant milestone for employers using AI, as many systems acquired to support HR processes are classified as high-risk AI systems under the Act. A high-risk classification also brings more extensive statutory obligations for the employer using the system. Compliance with the AI Act is reinforced by substantial administrative fines, which may amount to millions of euros depending on the size of the company.
Applications used to recognise employees’ emotions are prohibited where they analyse matters such as an employee’s intentions or job satisfaction. The use of biometric identifiers to categorise individuals on the basis of ethnic origin, political opinion, religion or sexual orientation is likewise prohibited. Social scoring based on personal characteristics is also prohibited where it results in detrimental treatment, such as restricting or preventing career progression. Subliminal manipulation and the exploitation of vulnerabilities are not permitted either.
In the terminology of the AI Act, an employer will typically be the deployer of a system where it acquires a ready-made AI solution for HR purposes. However, an organisation may modify a general-purpose AI system for its own purposes, in which case the employer may become a provider under the Act. The distinction between the roles of deployer and provider is important: providers are subject to significantly broader legal obligations, including continuous quality assurance, technical documentation, system certification and detailed regulatory reporting, compared with a deployer. Employers should therefore generally prefer ready-made applications designed for HR use and use them strictly in accordance with the provider’s instructions and intended purpose.
Higher risks and greater responsibilities
What types of AI use are considered high-risk in an HR context? Automated decision-making and profiling based on personal characteristics are always high-risk. Under the AI Act, high-risk systems include those that affect access to employment, employment terms, career progression or decisions concerning performance at work. Examples include AI systems used in recruitment, decisions concerning employment conditions and career development, or the termination of employment. The same category includes systems that allocate work tasks on the basis of a person’s behaviour, personality or other personal characteristics, as well as systems used to monitor and assess employee performance during employment. These are all situations in which AI directly affects individuals and their treatment in working life. They are precisely the kinds of sensitive situations in which risks must be identified.
The dividing line is not always entirely clear. Some of the uses described above may be considered low-risk if they do not cause significant harm or pose risks to employees’ health, safety or fundamental rights and do not materially influence decisions concerning them. For example, a system that screens job applications and recommends the most suitable candidates to a recruiter would clearly appear to be a high-risk application. By contrast, an AI tool that merely classifies and transfers applications between systems without influencing whether applicants progress in the recruitment process, or that identifies anomalies in decision-making without intervening in the decision itself, would fall into the minimal-risk category. Interactive AI tools, such as virtual assistants used in HR matters, fall into the limited-risk category. In such cases, the employer must inform users that they are interacting with AI.
When an employer introduces a high-risk AI system, the AI Act requires it to fulfil several obligations. First, it must ensure that the system is used appropriately and in accordance with its instructions and intended purpose. Second, the organisation must appoint a responsible person or team to oversee the system’s operation. Those responsible for oversight must have sufficient competence, training, authority and resources to perform the task. The employer must also pay particular attention to data governance and ensure that the data entered by the organisation is relevant to the intended purpose and sufficiently representative so that the system does not produce misleading results. In addition, the user organisation must respond to risks arising during use and report any errors or biased decision-making to the system provider and the competent authority where required, and cooperate with supervisory authorities where necessary.
Transparency is another key element of the Act: employees must be informed when an AI system is introduced, and where they are subject to AI-based decisions, they have the right to receive an explanation of a decision affecting them. Last but not least, the employer must retain the AI system’s automatically generated logs for at least six months where those logs are under its control. The logs may contain information on how the system reached particular outputs or decisions. Retaining and tracing this information is essential when investigating possible disputes at a later stage.
As noted above, existing legislation already requires employers to follow similar principles in many respects. Employees may, for example, be informed appropriately through cooperation procedures, while data protection legislation already requires personal data to be processed appropriately. The EU AI Act nevertheless adds new and concrete AI-specific obligations: when using high-risk AI systems, organisations must, among other things, retain logs and ensure continuous and adequate human oversight throughout the system’s lifecycle.
Users and data at the heart of an AI strategy
Although legislation provides the framework for responsible AI use, its ultimate success depends on people. A company may create an ambitious AI strategy, but if employees lack the ability, willingness or confidence to use the system, the expected benefits may not be realised. User trust is crucial, and in decisions affecting personnel it is critical. Research indicates that concerns about employees’ rights or the purpose for which a system is used directly affect whether employees accept AI as part of their everyday work. Trust is similarly weakened by concerns that employees’ ability to influence matters may be reduced and by doubts regarding the system’s actual capabilities.
Employers should therefore invest in introducing AI as openly and transparently as possible and in providing comprehensive information to personnel. Integrating AI into HR functions is always a process of change that requires traditional change management and learning. New technology may initially place a burden on both its users and those affected by its decisions, depending on the individual’s role and readiness. Management should therefore listen to employees, provide the necessary support and, above all, communicate clearly about the change. Subsequent disagreements and potential legal proceedings are also best prevented by investing in competence and AI literacy.
Usability is central to a successful AI investment. A phenomenon known as “shadow AI” has emerged: where employer-provided tools are perceived as difficult or inefficient, employees may begin to use external AI solutions instead of the organisation’s approved tools. This may cause the benefits of the investment to be lost while creating concrete data protection and cybersecurity risks as data is processed through uncontrolled channels. In addition to ensuring adequate AI literacy, organisations must therefore provide proper user training so that everyone knows how to use the new systems. Clear internal guidance is also needed on how external AI tools, such as general-purpose chatbots and other services, may be used at work. This helps protect personal data, trade secrets and other confidential information.
A central principle of the AI era is that an AI system is only as reliable as the data it uses. In addition to considering big data, organisations must pay close attention to their own HR data. If the data is incomplete or inaccurate, the AI system will inevitably draw incorrect or imprecise conclusions. At worst, an employer may unintentionally discriminate against an employee or job applicant where historical data contains structural bias. The EU AI Act therefore expressly requires the quality and reliability of data to be ensured in high-risk HR systems. In practice, this means that HR data must be collected, updated and cleaned continuously so that AI-based decisions are based on information that is as representative, accurate and relevant as possible. This is not an entirely new principle, as Finnish employers have for more than twenty years been required under the Act on the Protection of Privacy in Working Life to process only employee data that is necessary for the employment relationship.
Conclusion
The enormous potential of AI will undoubtedly be used more extensively to support HR functions in the coming years. Although its use is not free from legal or ethical challenges, AI can at its best make work more meaningful and HR and managerial processes more equal, personalised and efficient. However, AI must be introduced and used systematically so that organisations can realise its full potential while safeguarding employees’ rights. Ultimately, people remain at the heart of all of this: the users who turn strategy into reality in their daily work. Organisations that genuinely invest in their personnel’s technical and ethical competence, as well as in user-friendly tools, will be well positioned in the age of AI.
Kaisa Salo
Counsel
+35840 168 1418
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