Inter-organisational AI governance and the ecosystem of private and public actors shaping EU AI Act compliance
In developmentAI regulation does not reach deploying organisations directly. Between the regulator and the regulated targets sits a dense ecosystem of private actors: compliance software platforms, legal specialists, standards bodies, ethics advisors, industry associations. Each plays a role in determining what compliance looks like in practice.
In this project, I investigate these public and private-market actors in the context of EU AI Act implementation: who they are, what functions they perform, and whether their involvement makes AI governance more or less substantive.
The core empirical argument is that intermediaries are not neutral transmitters of regulatory requirements. Through the templates they produce, the advice they provide, and the audit evidence they recognise as sufficient, they actively construct what compliance means. Understanding this construction process is essential for evaluating whether management-based AI regulation can deliver on its goals.
A full paper with a detailed stakeholder mapping of the AI governance ecosystem is in preparation.