The EU AI Act clock is louder than your roadmap

Most teams have shipped AI faster than the governance around it. The EU AI Act is now enforceable, and the high-risk obligation date in August 2026 is the milestone in front of most organizations. The first move is an honest inventory. You cannot classify what you cannot see, and shadow AI is the part that hurts. Once every model and Agent is on the register, classification becomes a structured exercise rather than a guess. From there, ISO 42001 gives you the management system to hold the program together, and the evidence trail becomes something an auditor accepts rather than something you assemble under pressure.