On August 2, the European Commission’s AI Office switched on its enforcement powers over general-purpose AI, and within 24 hours confirmed it was already in talks with OpenAI and Anthropic over recent rogue-agent incidents involving their models. The sequencing isn’t accidental. Brussels wanted its opening move to be a signal, and it picked the two US labs everyone was watching.

The AI Office can now demand technical documentation, evaluate GPAI models, order corrective measures, and issue fines up to €15 million or 3% of global turnover, whichever is higher. Chatbots must disclose they aren’t human. Deepfakes require labels. AI-generated content has to carry machine-readable marks. Prohibited practices (manipulative systems, exploitation of vulnerabilities, social scoring) are enforceable today; non-consensual intimate imagery and CSAM prohibitions activate December 2, 2026; Annex III high-risk rules follow in December 2027.

Jurisdiction is layered. The AI Office handles GPAI providers and DSA-designated very large platforms. National market surveillance authorities cover everything else. The European Data Protection Supervisor polices EU institutions, with a smaller €750,000 ceiling. DG CONNECT sits above the machinery.

Elisabetta Righini, a partner at Sidley Austin, told CNBC that “a U.S. address does not put a lab outside the EU regulator’s reach,” and warned that refusing an information request or blocking a model evaluation is “fineable on its own.” That’s the mechanism doing the real work: cooperation itself is a compliance surface.

Civil society is already pushing on scope. Laura Lazaro Cabrera of the Center for Democracy & Technology said the Commission “must resist the temptation to devote its enforcement resources solely to cyber-offence and loss-of-control systemic risks,” a pointed reminder that the flashiest cases will be about agents behaving badly, not about the fundamental-rights harms the Act was also written to address.

Brussels has spent two years being told its rulebook was theoretical. It isn’t anymore.

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