Governance & Regulation advanced

Technical Documentation

Under the EU AI Act: the file describing how a system was built, tested, and controlled, kept ready for authorities.

Article 11 and Annex IV set out what the file must contain: system description, design choices, data, training and testing, performance metrics, risk management, and post-market plan. It must exist before the system goes to market and be maintained afterwards. It is the compliance artefact — no file, no conformity.

In practice: The document an authority asks for first, which teams start writing far too late.

Plain-English summary of Article 11 / Annex IV. The binding text is Regulation (EU) 2024/1689.

Where this comes up