Global AI policy roundup: what teams should track (Sep 2025)
Sep 2025
Policy is no longer “legal’s problem later.” In 2025 it’s increasingly baked into how teams generate, approve, and publish AI content. The practical shift is simple: regulators and platforms want **traceability** and **clear responsibility**.
Instead of trying to predict every future rule, teams can do something more robust: design a workflow that is easy to audit, easy to explain, and easy to adapt when requirements change.
What changed in 2025 (a concrete example)
In the EU, the AI Act introduces specific obligations for **general‑purpose AI**. To help providers operationalize those requirements, the European Commission published work on a **General‑Purpose AI Code of Practice** and related guidance materials in 2025, including pages that explicitly call out when GPAI rules start applying.
A key date that shows up in the Commission’s materials is that the AI Act’s rules on general‑purpose AI **apply from 2 August 2025**. Even if you’re not a model provider, this matters because it sets expectations for what “compliance‑ready” looks like across the ecosystem (vendors, tools, and downstream users).
What this means for creators and studios (workflow-level, not legal advice)
The winning approach is to treat compliance as “production hygiene” rather than a separate project:
- Keep a minimal provenance record (tool/provider + model/version, prompt, key parameters).
- Separate exploration from production: sandbox → shortlist → approval → publish.
- Define who signs off on “ship‑candidate” assets and where that decision is recorded.
- Keep an audit trail for commercial assets (especially paid campaigns, packaging, marketplaces).
A lightweight policy checklist you can implement this week
- Add a “Disclosure needed?” checkbox to your publishing checklist.
- Store a link to the approved asset plus a short approval note (who approved + why).
- Pin presets/versions for production so results are reproducible.
- Add escalation rules (what happens when an asset is challenged or flagged).