The EU AI Act: what startups from Türkiye should know

The European Union's AI Act is one of the first major legal frameworks to regulate AI systems comprehensively. It can affect not only EU companies but also companies placing AI systems on the EU market or whose outputs are used in the EU. Startups from Türkiye selling, or planning to sell, into Europe should know the basics.

A risk-based approach

The Act classifies systems by risk:

• Unacceptable risk: prohibited uses such as certain manipulative practices and social scoring
• High risk: systems in areas such as hiring, education, credit assessment, critical infrastructure and certain health and public services; extensive duties on risk management, data quality, documentation, human oversight and logging
• Limited risk: transparency duties, such as telling users they are interacting with AI and labelling certain AI-generated content
• Minimal risk: most AI applications, with no extra obligations

General-purpose AI models

Providers of large foundation models have documentation and transparency duties. Startups using such models via API are usually not the model provider but a "deployer" or provider of their own system; defining your role correctly matters.

Timeline

The Act applies in phases: rules on prohibited practices and general-purpose models come earlier, most high-risk obligations later. Follow the current timeline and guidance from official EU sources.

Preparation steps

1. List AI uses in your product and assess their risk category.
2. Get legal advice on uses that may be high-risk.
3. Build transparency duties into the product (AI disclosure, content labelling).
4. Document data, testing and decision processes; see model evaluation.
5. Set up human oversight and appeal mechanisms; see responsible AI.
6. Handle GDPR and personal data duties together; see AI and KVKK.

The situation in Türkiye

Follow AI-specific regulatory work in Türkiye closely; currently KVKK, consumer, IP and sector rules also apply to AI applications.

Conclusion

The EU AI Act sets the frame for offering trustworthy AI in Europe. Early preparation is a competitive advantage with enterprise customers. For expanding to Europe, see our software export guide. This guide is general information; get legal advice for your product.