Building AI Readiness for the EU AI Act

AI adoption has accelerated at an extraordinary pace. Generative AI tools are now in everyday use across industries, with most organizations exploring how to put them to work in core operations. According to McKinsey’s 2025 State of AI survey, more than three-quarters of companies now use AI in at least one business function.

With this momentum comes an equally swift regulatory response. Policymakers worldwide are working to ensure AI is developed responsibly and used safely. The EU AI Act is one of the most comprehensive frameworks to date, introducing rules that strengthen transparency, mitigate bias, and protect individuals from harmful applications of AI.

For organizations, this presents both a challenge and an opportunity: how can you harness AI’s transformative power while staying ahead of evolving regulatory expectations?

How Regulation is Shaping AI Adoption

The EU AI Act sets clear boundaries for what’s acceptable and what isn’t. High-risk applications, like AI systems used for biometric identification, healthcare, or financial services, face rigorous oversight. Systems deemed to pose an “unacceptable risk”, including those threatening safety or fundamental rights, are restricted outright.

General-purpose AI systems, including many of today’s foundation models, now face compliance obligations, with additional requirements for the most powerful systemic-risk models taking effect in August, 2026. Organizations that fail to comply may face not only regulatory penalties but also reputational damage at a time when customer trust is more valuable than ever.

These developments are accelerating the shift from experimental AI projects to enterprise-wide strategies rooted in trust and accountability. Building that trust starts with data.

Data Integrity as Your Competitive Edge

Meeting the demands of new regulations requires more than just ticking boxes. To deliver trustworthy AI outcomes, you need to:

• Break down data silos across business units and data platforms, including cloud, hybrid, and on-premises – particularly where critical data lives in legacy platforms
• Ensure data quality, governance, and observability at scale
• Incorporate additional third-party datasets to add context and increase accuracy

Research shows that many organizations still struggle with these fundamentals:

• 64% of organizations say data quality is the top data integrity challenge
• 61% cite data governance as the number one barrier to AI success
• 28% say data enrichment with third-party datasets is a top priority for improving data integrity

But the organizations that prioritize data integrity, accuracy, consistency, and context, will be the ones best positioned to unlock AI’s full potential.

The Cost of Poor Data Foundations

Today, only 12% of organizations report having truly AI-ready data. That means the majority are still building on shaky ground.

 When foundational elements are missing, the risks compound quickly:

• Integration gaps: Critical data often sits siloed across legacy, cloud, and hybrid environments. Without bringing all relevant data together, you lack the full picture needed to train fair and accurate AI models. Blind spots can introduce bias and erode trust in AI outcomes. For example, you might be missing a geography or demographic group where your products are being consumed.
• Weak governance, quality, and observability: Without rigorous safeguards, organizations risk building AI on flawed foundations. Inaccurate or untraceable data, left unmonitored, can cause small errors to multiply rapidly, undermining AI-driven decisions and creating reputational, financial, and compliance risks.
• Lack of context: Even when your core data is accurate, it often lacks the real-world context needed to make AI results meaningful. Without demographic, geospatial, or environmental context, your models may misinterpret signals or oversimplify complex realities — reducing the accuracy of business outcomes.

In high-stakes industries like financial services, these shortcomings are magnified. AI is increasingly used in decisions that directly affect people’s lives, from fraud detection to credit scoring. If the underlying data is biased, incomplete, or missing context, the results can lead to unfair treatment or unintended consequences.

Regulators are watching closely, but so are customers, investors, and the public.

From Experimentation to Enterprise AI

Organizations are moving from experimentation to production use cases and taking a more intentional approach, developing enterprise strategies that balance innovation with responsibility.

This is especially important as AI systems grow more advanced. Emerging agentic AI models are capable of reasoning, making decisions, and adapting in real time.

A strong data integrity foundation enables organizations to adopt these emerging capabilities responsibly, with full visibility and control over outcomes.

Proactive AI Readiness

The EU AI Act, along with similar legislation in the UK, US, and other regions, signals a new phase of AI maturity. Compliance deadlines are coming, but you shouldn’t view them as the finish line. Instead, they represent an opportunity to build lasting AI readiness.

As the EU continues refining its regulatory landscape, including proposals to simplify certain data protection and AI requirements, the focus remains on building trust, transparency, and accountability into AI systems.

By investing in trusted data foundations, you not only reduce regulatory risk but also position your organization to innovate faster and more responsibly.

Responsible AI, powered by integrated, high-quality, and contextualized data, is better able to deliver meaningful business outcomes, from improving efficiency and accuracy to strengthening customer relationships.

The organizations that act now will be the ones leading the way forward, showing that compliance and innovation can go hand in hand. As agentic AI evolves, trusted data will remain the foundation for innovation with accountability.

For more on how to prepare for scalable, ethical AI adoption, read our eBook: Cutting Through the Chaos: The Case for Comprehensive AI Governance.

 

This blog was adapted from a piece that originally appeared in The AI Journal.