The European Union’s legal term for an AI model that can perform a wide range of different tasks and be built into many other products, such as the large language models behind chatbots. Under the European Union’s AI law, the companies that make these models carry their own obligations, separate from the rules for applications built on top, with extra duties for the most powerful models.
Technical view
Defined in Article 3(63) of the AI Act as a model that displays significant generality, competently performs a wide range of distinct tasks and can be integrated into many downstream systems; pre-release research models are excluded. Article 53 obligations, applicable from 2 August 2025, or 2 August 2027 for models already on the market, cover technical documentation, information for downstream providers, a copyright policy and a public training content summary. Models with systemic risk, presumed above 10^25 floating-point operations of training compute, a threshold the Commission can amend, must also be evaluated, with risks mitigated, serious incidents reported and cybersecurity ensured. A voluntary code of practice offers a compliance route.
Related
Part of AI Terminology Index, section: Governance, Law and Regulation.