Two models, one failed conversation

April 2026 shows the two speeds of this subject side by side. On one side the technology: Claude Opus 4.7 appeared on 16 April, GPT-5.5 on 24 April. On the other side the regulation, which suffered a setback in the same month.

The trilogue that did not reach its goal

In the EU, the Council, Parliament and Commission negotiate the final legal text in so-called trilogues. On the «Digital Omnibus on AI» — the plan to postpone the high-risk obligations of the AI Act — the second trilogue ended on 28 April 2026 without agreement.

That is remarkable because the Council and Parliament had adopted their positions in March with large majorities. The objective was undisputed; the route to it was not. The course of the procedure is documented by Parliament: European Parliament's Legislative Train.

Agreement on whether is not yet agreement on how. Nine days later the solution was there.

On 7 May 2026 the political agreement did come about after all — in a negotiation that began on the evening of 6 May and ended in the early hours of the morning.

The clock was running

What made April tense was the calendar. The obligations whose postponement was at stake were due to take effect on 2 August 2026. At the end of April it was open whether the postponement would be finished in time.

It was — but only just. Adopted in June, in the Official Journal on 24 July, in force on 27 July. Six days before the deadline.

And the models?

Claude Opus 4.7 on 16 April and GPT-5.5 on 24 April continued the rhythm that had held since November 2025. The real finding of this review lies in the comparison: between the Commission's proposal in November 2025 and its entry into force in July 2026, at least a dozen new models appeared.

A legislative procedure takes longer than a model cycle. That is not a criticism of the EU — it is a structural fact that every business has to reckon with if it waits for a rule before it acts.