Evidence ChecklistEU AI Act

GPAI evidence pack Article 53 and 55 checklist

Assemble the records a GPAI model provider needs for EU AI Act Article 53 obligations, with Article 55 extensions when the model has systemic risk.

Use this page to collect technical documentation, downstream-provider information, copyright-policy evidence, a public training-content summary, and systemic-risk testing, incident, and cybersecurity records where applicable.

Author
Sorena AI
Published
May 9, 2026
Updated
May 9, 2026
Sections
6

Structured answer sets in this page tree.

Primary sources
13

Cited legal and guidance references.

Publication metadata
Sorena AI
Published May 9, 2026
Updated May 9, 2026
Overview

This checklist is for teams that provide, modify, distribute, or integrate a general-purpose AI model and need a maintainable evidence pack for the EU AI Act. It keeps Article 53 baseline records separate from the extra Article 55 records that apply to GPAI models with systemic risk.

Section 1

1. Confirm the model and provider record

Start the pack with a model-level record, not a product feature record. Article 53 applies to providers of general-purpose AI models, and the Commission guidance explains that the GPAI obligations are meant to clarify who must comply and what is expected from them.

Record whether the organisation is the original model provider, has placed a modified or fine-tuned GPAI model on the Union market, or is only integrating another provider's model into an AI system. Keep the model version, release date, Union market release date, distribution method, licence, dependencies, authorised representative status where relevant, and evidence of model authenticity in one place.

  • Evidence to keep: legal provider name, contact point, model name and version, model family coverage, model authenticity evidence such as a secure hash or endpoint, release date, Union market release date, model dependencies, licence, and distribution channels.
  • Owner: model governance or legal owns the role decision; model engineering owns model identity, dependencies, and authenticity evidence; product owns Union distribution channels.
  • Reopen trigger: a new model version, material modification, fine-tuning path, new Union distribution channel, licence change, or provider-role change.
Section 2

2. Build the Article 53 technical documentation file

Article 53(1)(a) requires providers to draw up and keep up-to-date technical documentation of the model, including training and testing process information and evaluation results, for provision to the AI Office and national competent authorities on request.

Use Annex XI as the minimum table of contents. The pack should show what the model is intended to do, the systems it can be integrated into, acceptable use policies, release and distribution details, architecture and parameter information, input and output modalities and formats, licence, development process, data provenance and curation, training/testing/validation data, computational resources, training time, and known or estimated energy consumption.

  • Required pack section: model description, intended tasks, integration contexts, acceptable use policy, release and distribution record, architecture and parameter summary, modalities and formats, licence, development design choices, training methodology, data provenance and curation, bias-detection measures where applicable, evaluations, training compute, training time, and energy information.
  • Evidence standard: each field should identify the source system or document, last update date, evidence owner, and whether the information is intended for the AI Office, national competent authorities, downstream providers, or public release.
  • Reopen trigger: a model architecture change, new training run, new evaluation result, new data-source class, changed acceptable use policy, updated licence, or changed energy or compute estimate.
Section 3

3. Prepare downstream-provider information under Annex XII

Article 53(1)(b) is not only an authority-facing documentation duty. Providers must also draw up, keep up-to-date, and make available information and documentation to providers of AI systems that intend to integrate the GPAI model into their AI systems.

The downstream pack should be written for integration decisions. It should help downstream providers understand capabilities and limitations, comply with their own AI Act duties, and integrate the model with the technical means, input/output constraints, licence, acceptable use policy, and data provenance information listed in Annex XII.

  • Downstream bundle: model tasks, intended integration contexts, acceptable use policy, release and distribution method, licence, software versions where relevant, hardware or software interactions where relevant, architecture and parameters, modalities, formats, maximum input and output size, technical integration means, and data provenance information.
  • Delivery evidence: customer documentation link, developer portal page, model card, API documentation, release notes, terms or licence page, and a change log showing when downstream-facing information changed.
  • Reopen trigger: changed capabilities or limitations, changed input/output size, new integration method, licence or acceptable-use change, or a downstream-provider request showing that current documentation is unclear.
Section 5

5. Add Article 55 records for systemic-risk GPAI models

If the model is classified or designated as a GPAI model with systemic risk, Article 55 adds obligations on top of Articles 53 and 54. Keep these records in a separate systemic-risk annex so teams can see which controls apply only to systemic-risk models.

The annex should cover model evaluation, documented adversarial testing, assessment and mitigation of Union-level systemic risks and their sources, serious-incident tracking and reporting, corrective measures, and adequate cybersecurity protection for the model and its physical infrastructure.

  • Systemic-risk testing file: evaluation strategy, criteria, metrics, results, limitations, internal and external adversarial testing where applicable, red-team records, model adaptation or alignment records, and sign-off on systemic-risk acceptance or mitigation.
  • Serious-incident file: start and end dates or best approximations, resulting harm and affected group, chain of events, model involved, available evidence of the model's involvement, provider response, recommendation to the AI Office or national competent authorities, root-cause analysis, and post-market monitoring patterns such as near misses.
  • Cybersecurity file: protection objectives, access controls for model weights and infrastructure, monitoring and response evidence, security testing, vulnerability handling, and records showing how the security level is adequate for the systemic-risk profile.
Section 6

6. Evidence-pack closeout checklist

Close the pack only when every required section has an owner, source, update trigger, and evidence location. The strongest pack separates authority-facing documentation, downstream-provider material, public summaries, and systemic-risk evidence instead of mixing all records into one policy document.

Do not claim Article 55 readiness unless the model has been assessed against the systemic-risk obligations and the evidence pack includes the extra testing, incident, mitigation, and cybersecurity records. Do not claim open-source exemptions without documenting the licence, public availability of parameters and architecture information, and whether the model presents systemic risk.

  • Article 53 baseline complete: technical documentation, downstream-provider information, copyright policy, and public training-content summary are present and current.
  • Recipient markings complete: every record is marked as public, downstream-provider-facing, AI Office or national competent authority on-request, or internal confidential evidence.
  • Systemic-risk annex complete if applicable: classification or designation rationale, Article 55 evaluation and mitigation records, serious-incident workflow, and cybersecurity evidence.
  • Change controls complete: model release, modification, data-source, evaluation, incident, licence, public-summary, and downstream-documentation changes each have a named review owner.
Primary sources

References and citations

digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu
Referenced sections
  • Supports separating Transparency and Copyright obligations for all GPAI providers from Safety and Security obligations for systemic-risk GPAI providers.
"Transparency, Copyright, and Safety and Security"
ec.europa.eu
Referenced sections
  • Supports concrete copyright-policy controls such as assigned responsibilities, rights-reservation handling, and crawler transparency.
"copyright policy"
ec.europa.eu
Referenced sections
  • Supports distinguishing information intended for downstream providers from information provided to the AI Office or national competent authorities on request.
"downstream providers"
eur-lex.europa.eu
Referenced sections
  • Primary legal source for systemic-risk GPAI model obligations on evaluation, systemic-risk mitigation, incident reporting, and cybersecurity.
"general-purpose AI models with systemic risk"
eur-lex.europa.eu
Referenced sections
  • Primary legal source for GPAI provider obligations in Article 53, systemic-risk obligations in Article 55, and Annex XI/XII documentation content.
"Obligations for providers of general-purpose AI models"
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