Free EU AI Act Self-Assessment for SMEs

Most small businesses have no idea whether the EU AI Act applies to them — and the ones that assume it doesn't are often wrong. If your company uses an AI recruitment tool, an AI-powered CRM, a chatbot, or even ChatGPT with client data, you almost certainly have obligations under the Act. This free, five-minute self-assessment tells you where you stand, in plain English, with no legal jargon and no sales pitch attached.

What does this EU AI Act self-assessment actually check?

The self-assessment checks three things: whether the AI Act applies to your business at all, which role you play (deployer or provider), and which of your AI systems fall into higher-risk categories. It takes about five minutes and gives you a plain-English result you can act on.

It walks you through a short series of yes/no questions about how your business uses AI. Behind each question sits the actual structure of the Act — its scope rules, its deployer and provider definitions, and its risk tiers — so the result you get is grounded in the real regulation, not a generic quiz. You will finish knowing whether you are in scope, what your role is, and which obligations already apply to you today.

Who is this AI Act checker for business built for?

It is built for SME owners, operations leads and compliance managers who use AI tools but do not have a dedicated legal team. If you have ever asked "am I affected by the AI Act?" and found only 200-page legal texts, this is the shortcut.

The Act was written with large AI developers in mind, but its obligations reach right down to the small business that merely uses AI tools bought off the shelf. That is most SMEs today. The self-assessment is designed for three situations in particular:

• You are an owner-operator who has quietly rolled AI tools into daily work and now wonders if that created a legal exposure.
• You are an operations or compliance lead caught between pressure to adopt AI and caution about the rules.
• You are a German or Austrian Mittelstand business that wants a bilingual, defensible read on the KI-Verordnung before committing budget.

Is the AI Act compliance checklist really free — what is the catch?

Yes, the assessment and your result are genuinely free, with no card required. If you want help acting on the result, our paid 360° Health Check fee is credited against any implementation you go on to commission — so nothing is wasted.

We built the free tool because the single biggest problem we see is not non-compliance — it is invisibility. Businesses cannot fix a risk they cannot see. Giving away the diagnostic removes the first barrier. If your result is clean, you walk away informed and we are happy. If it surfaces gaps, you will see exactly what they are, and you can decide in your own time whether to handle them in-house or bring us in.

What should I do after I get my result?

Your next step depends on your result. If you are out of scope, keep the summary on file. If you are a deployer with live obligations, start with AI literacy and an AI register. If you have higher-risk systems, book a Health Check to map them properly.

Every result comes with a short, prioritised list of next actions written for a non-lawyer. For most SMEs the early moves are the same: document your AI literacy measures under Article 4, build a simple register of the AI systems you use, and write a short usage policy your staff will actually follow. None of that requires a consultant — but if you would rather not spend your evenings on it, that is exactly what our Compliance Guard service handles on a monthly basis.

Frequently asked questions

Am I affected by the AI Act if I only use ChatGPT?

Very likely yes. Using a general-purpose AI tool such as ChatGPT in your business generally makes you a "deployer" under the Act, which carries obligations around AI literacy and, in some uses, transparency. The self-assessment confirms your position in a few minutes.

Is this AI Act compliance checklist suitable for a UK business?

Yes. The EU AI Act can apply to UK companies whenever the output of their AI system is used inside the EU, even after Brexit. The assessment includes the scope questions that determine whether a UK SME is caught.

How long does the AI Act checker for business take?

About five minutes. It is a short sequence of yes/no questions with an instant plain-English result and a prioritised action list at the end.

Do I need a lawyer to understand my result?

No. The result is written for business owners, not lawyers. It tells you your scope, your role and your immediate obligations in plain language, and flags where professional input would genuinely add value.