On 28 April 2026, the second political trilogue on the Digital Omnibus on AI ended without agreement after roughly twelve hours of negotiation. The breakdown did not concern the most prominent element of the proposal, the postponement of the AI Act’s high-risk obligations, but the conformity assessment architecture for AI systems embedded in products that fall under existing EU sectoral safety law (Annex I to the AI Act).
What the Omnibus on AI is actually about
The Digital Omnibus on AI is one of two proposals the Commission tabled on 19 November 2025 as part of its broader Digital Omnibus package. Unlike the Data Omnibus – which targets the GDPR, the ePrivacy Directive, NIS2 and the Data Act – the Omnibus on AI focuses exclusively on targeted amendments to the AI Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689), under the political banner of “simplification and competitiveness”. The package is sizeable: the consolidated multi-column trilogue comparison runs to roughly 170 pages and touches a broad range of provisions. Most of the political attention has, however, concentrated on a handful of issues.
The headline element is the postponement of the high-risk obligations under Sections 1 to 3 of Chapter III. As enacted, the AI Act applies those obligations on a staggered basis: 2 August 2026 for Annex III high-risk systems and 2 August 2027 for high-risk systems falling under Annex I (i.e. AI embedded in products covered by EU sectoral safety legislation). The Commission’s November 2025 proposal would have replaced those fixed dates with a conditional mechanism, under which application would be triggered six or twelve months after a Commission decision confirming the availability of harmonised standards, common specifications and supporting guidelines, subject to hard backstop dates. In the legislative process, both the Council and the Parliament moved away from that conditional architecture and converged on those backstop dates as fixed application dates: 2 December 2027 for Annex III and 2 August 2028 for Annex I.
A second timing question concerns the watermarking obligation under Article 50(2), which requires providers of generative AI systems to mark synthetic audio, image, video or text content as machine-readable from 2 August 2026. The Omnibus would introduce a transitional period for systems already on the market before that date; the Commission and the Council favour six months (compliance by 2 February 2027), while the Parliament prefers three months (compliance by 2 November 2026).
Other elements that have shaped the negotiations include a proposed prohibition under Article 5 of AI-enabled “nudification” tools and systems generating child sexual abuse material. An extension of the legal basis under Article 10 for processing special categories of personal data for bias detection and correction. Adjustments to the AI literacy obligation under Article 4. Revised rules on registration of non-high-risk AI systems. And a set of simplifications targeted at SMEs and small mid-cap enterprises, including modulated penalty rules. Several of these moved closer to consensus during the trilogue process, the conformity assessment architecture for AI in regulated products did not.
The road to 28 April
Both co-legislators moved quickly. The Council adopted its general approach on 13 March 2026, broadly aligning with the Commission’s proposal. The European Parliament followed on 26 March 2026, adopting its negotiating mandate by 569 votes to 45. By the start of the trilogue, the three institutions had converged on the centrepiece of the file: the postponement of the high-risk obligations and the two backstop dates of 2 December 2027 (Annex III) and 2 August 2028 (Annex I). That convergence is what makes the trilogue’s collapse striking – the dispute was not about whether to delay, but about how the AI Act interlocks with existing EU sectoral safety law.
Why the negotiations collapsed
The unresolved file at the close of the 28 April session was the conformity assessment architecture for AI systems embedded in Annex I products. Section A products under Annex I currently follow a combined regime: the sectoral conformity assessment applies, and the AI Act requirements layer on top. The European Parliament’s position, backed by Germany, was to move some or all of those products closer to primarily sectoral handling, on the rationale that double regulation should be avoided. The Council resisted reopening that structural balance and was prepared to discuss only technical adjustments. This is not a peripheral question. It determines whether companies producing AI-enabled regulated products face one conformity assessment regime or two. And whether existing notified bodies under sectoral legislation can also assess AI Act compliance. Under trilogue logic (“nothing is agreed until everything is agreed”) the points of consensus, including the postponement and the two backstop dates, could not be locked in while Annex I remained open.
What happens next
A further trilogue is expected in early to mid-May. No date has been formally confirmed. The Cypriot Council Presidency is seeking to close the file before its term ends on 30 June 2026. If it does not, the Irish Presidency will take over for the second half of 2026.
The hard wall is 2 August 2026. If the Omnibus is not adopted by then, the high-risk obligations become applicable on that date as originally enacted. The Commission has publicly stressed the importance of a “good text” alongside speed, which suggests that the next round is unlikely to be settled by a thin compromise. Meanwhile, an instrument launched as a simplification measure continues to generate exactly the kind of compliance complexity (parallel timelines, contingency planning, regulatory uncertainty) that it was meant to remove.
What this means for companies
For companies, the operational consequence of the 28 April collapse is this: any compliance programme quietly recalibrated to the Omnibus timeline since November 2025 is now exposed. The postponement is no longer a safe planning assumption.
Three trilogue-specific take-aways:
- The baseline is 2 August 2026, not 2 December 2027. Any relief from the Omnibus is upside, not a planning anchor.
- Companies that paused compliance work in late 2025 must restart now. Starting from zero is no longer realistic before August.
- Watch the next trilogue closely in early to mid-May. A successful outcome changes the picture overnight; a second collapse makes the original deadline effectively unavoidable.
For further information, please contact:
Oliver Belitz, Partner, Bird & Bird
oliver.belitz@twobirds.com
