What is Article 4 of the EU AI Act?

The general provisions of the EU AI Act are now in effect starting February 2, 2025. One of these is Article 4, which pertains to AI literacy. There was initially a lot of confusion among organizations about this legislation as there was very little clarity on what the EU Commission expected.

"Providers and deployers of AI systems shall take measures to ensure, to their best extent, a sufficient level of AI literacy of their staff and other persons dealing with the operation and use of AI systems on their behalf, taking into account their technical knowledge, experience, education and training and the context the AI systems are to be used in..."

Several aspects of this text led to common questions:

• Should all employees be trained on concepts of artificial intelligence?
• To what extent should the employee be trained?
• Who has the liability to ensure training in a provider-deployer scenario?

To provide additional clarity, the EU Office published the "Living repository to foster learning and exchange on AI literacy."

Suggested Steps to Comply with Article 4

Based on the examples from the EU AI Office repository, here are three steps you could undertake:

Step 1: Ask yourself five key questions:

• How does the initiative account for the technical knowledge and experience of the target group?
• How does the initiative account for the context in which the AI system is used?
• What has been the impact so far, and how do you monitor it?
• Which challenges has the initiative addressed?
• Is the organization planning to improve the practice of imparting AI literacy?

Step 2: Compare your answers with the examples provided in the repository and rate your status (e.g., Fully Implemented, Partially Rolled-Out).

Step 3: Prepare a plan to reach the "Fully Implemented" status based on your assessment.

Suggested Activities for Full Implementation

1. Develop tailored learning paths for different employee roles.
2. Integrate industry-specific or company-specific aspects into the training.
3. Impart knowledge on ethical aspects of AI, not just the technical parts.
4. Establish and monitor AI literacy KPIs.

If you wish to assess the maturity of your organization, we offer a free maturity assessment tool that helps give a quick assessment.