Europe simplifies its AI rules: a key signal for Uruguay and the region

On May 7, 2026, the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union reached a provisional agreement on the Digital Omnibus on Artificial Intelligence, introducing substantive amendments to the AI Act, the world’s first comprehensive legislation on artificial intelligence.

The agreement extends compliance deadlines, simplifies certain regulatory obligations, and expands the role of regulatory sandboxes, acknowledging that an overly complex regulatory framework may create implementation challenges that ultimately affect innovation and even the effectiveness of the regulation itself.

The European decision comes at a particularly relevant moment for Uruguay and Latin America, where active debate is underway on whether and how artificial intelligence should be regulated.

The message from Brussels is clear: even the world’s most ambitious jurisdiction in digital governance is recalibrating its approach. Not because it has abandoned its protection objectives, but because experience has shown that regulatory burdens that outweigh their benefits may generate adverse effects, including disproportionate compliance costs, implementation delays, and competitiveness gaps with other regions.

For Uruguay, this development reinforces the importance of adopting a prudent and incremental approach.

The country already has an existing legal framework that provides robust safeguards for protection of individual rights, including the Personal Data Protection Act, which has been recognized by the European Commission as meeting its adequacy standards. In addition, Uruguay adhered to the Council of Europe Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights in September 2025.

There are also existing rules on consumer protection, civil liability, and intellectual property that already provide applicable legal tools for situations arising from use of AI. Taken together, these instruments provide a baseline level of protection whose scope should be carefully assessed before assuming that additional comprehensive legislation is necessarily the most appropriate response.

Uruguay now has the opportunity to critically observe the evolution of these regulatory models and rigorously assess which interventions are truly necessary, in which areas, and through which instruments. This assessment should start from a reasonable premise: preserving the country’s positioning as a regional technology hub and avoiding regulatory burdens unjustified given the protections already afforded by the current legal framework.

 

The text of the provisional political agreement is available in the official press release of the Council of the European Union: here.