Future Trends

Part V tested the book's argument against practice, and Chapter 21 distilled what works today. Part VI turns to what comes next. This chapter looks at the developments most likely to reshape AI governance over the next five years, as an analytical outlook rather than a forecast. Each section separates what can be observed today, with sources, from what can be expected and from what is speculation, and the chapter ends with a horizon register that puts the outlook under version control.

This chapter borrows the architecture radar practice of Architecture as Code (Chapter 25) (66, Nordqvist, 2025): state each trend, classify the evidence, assign a horizon, name the decision it affects, and set a review date. Three horizons are used. Observable covers developments already visible in adopted legislation, published guidance, cited standards or production systems; expected covers developments with strong evidence but uncertain timing or form within five years; and speculation covers developments that are plausible and consequential but not yet evidenced.

The labels matter because a governance arrangement built on a speculative trend should be reversible, while one built on an observable trend may be committed to. A date in adopted legislation is observable, but a date in a Commission proposal is not, as the Digital Omnibus showed when the co-legislators replaced the Commission's proposed mechanism with fixed dates. The author's own projections, which go further than the evidence, are kept for Chapter 24 (Reflections on Each Part).

Primary topics explored

1. Reading an outlook responsibly
2. The AI Act's remaining phases
3. Guidelines, codes of practice and standards
4. Enforcement and supervisory expectations
5. Beyond the Union: the EEA, the United Kingdom and Switzerland
6. Agents and accountability