On 19 May 2026, the European Commission published the draft guidelines for the classification of high-risk artificial intelligence systems 1 and opened a five-week stakeholders’ consultation on this matter. The guidelines, which are closely related to the EU AI Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689) 2 will support AI providers and deployers in assessing whether their systems are high risk.
The EU AI Act is the main legislation governing the use of artificial intelligence systems (AI systems) in the EU, designed to support innovations while ensuring safety and protecting against the harmful effects of AI systems. The recently published guidelines are structured around the classification provided for an AI system under Article 6 of the EU AI Act, which classifies an AI system as a high-risk one if:
a) the AI system is intended to be used as a safety component of a product, or the AI system is itself a product, covered by the Union harmonisation legislation listed in Annex I;
b) the product whose safety component pursuant to point (a) is the AI system, or the AI system itself as a product, is required to undergo a third-party conformity assessment, with a view to the placing on the market or the putting into service of that product pursuant to the Union harmonisation legislation listed in Annex I.
In addition, Article 6(2) defines that AI systems referred to in Annex III of the EU AI Act shall be considered to be high-risk too.
With regards to inland navigation, in particular, in relation to autonomous or semi-autonomous navigation, the aforementioned legislation could apply if technology used in IWT acts as a safety component or if it is listed in Annex III of the EU AI Act (e.g., critical infrastructure). In IWT, technologies and onboard equipment used, for example, for voyage planning, including route planning, collision avoidance, vessel tracking, situational awareness (environmental perception), (semi) autonomous steering, can be considered high-risk AI systems in accordance with Article 6(1). Moreover, when it comes to critical infrastructure (Annex III), such as bridges, locks, ports, and terminals, in the case of autonomous shipping, it also means digital infrastructure, which falls into the scope of the EU AI legislation, as a high-risk AI system.
The proposed guidelines aim to help providers and deployers of AI systems assess whether their AI system is high-risk or not, and what classification of high-risk their system would fall under. The consultations are open until 23 June 2026: Link
