Shadow AI and the fine for panicking

What actually happens when your team uses AI to write a blog post, a tender or a report, and does the law now care? Alan Thornton, founder of the AI governance platform Tipcan Solutions, joins Maryrose Lyons to make the EU AI Act genuinely usable for built environment professionals.

Alan walks us through the the latest requirement in EU AI Act compliance that is labelling. If you're using AI and sharing certain types of text content now you must label it, but not all content. A general design blog is fine. A glowing piece about a local councillor is not, unless a named human takes responsibility for it. That idea, that every firm must have real accountability runs through the whole conversation.

From there: shadow AI and where the risk really hides, how to properly inventory your AI use cases, and the fines that now apply, including a sneaky second one for handing a regulator incomplete information in a panic. Alan and Maryrose also get into what 'high risk' means once CE marks and national sandboxes enter the picture, and why Ireland's oddly fragmented approach to enforcement is worth watching.

Practical, occasionally very funny, and refreshingly free of scaremongering.

Show notes:

• Shadow AI, and why the biggest risk is often the staff member you least suspect
• The four risk levels, and why most firms sit in the "limited risk" transparency band
• The public-interest test: one blog post needs an AI label, a near-identical one does not
• The release valve, how genuine human oversight makes the labelling duty ease
• How to properly inventory your AI use cases, and why a spreadsheet will not cut it
• The fines that now apply, including a second, sneakier one for panicking under pressure
• What "high risk" really means, once CE marks and national sandboxes enter the picture
• Why Ireland's fragmented approach to enforcement is worth watching
• The one thing every firm can do this week to get on the right side of the Act
• Alan Thornton on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-thornton/
• Tipcan Solutions
• EU AI Act · Article 50, transparency · Article 99, penalties
• ISO/IEC 42001 (AI management systems)
• CE marking (EU)
• RICS AI standard (in force 9 March 2026)
• UK Data (Use and Access) Act 2025
• Ireland's EU AI Act implementation
• We are AI Institute

Join us o 17 September for a webinar on: The EU AI Act, your staff, your risk: ignorance is no defense

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