Training course – EU AI Act & AI Compliance – Founders & Startups

EU AI Act & AI Compliance for Founders and Startups

Putting the EU AI Act into practice: risk categories, deployer obligations, AI literacy under Art. 4, AI policy and GDPR interfaces.

Duration
6 hours, one session
Format
Online or on-site
Language
German or English
Participants
open dates or exclusive for your team
Certificate
Certificate of attendance

Overview

This course connects EU AI Act & AI Compliance with the everyday processes of Founders & Startups. Participants work on realistic scenarios and leave with prompts, workflows and checklists they can use straight away.

The EU AI Act is the first comprehensive legal framework for artificial intelligence, and it applies not only to providers but also to organisations that use AI systems in their daily work. In this compact course you will learn how the regulation is structured: prohibited practices, high-risk systems, transparency obligations and general-purpose AI models. You will find out which role your organisation plays as a deployer, which obligations follow and how to record and classify the AI applications you use in a structured way.

The practical part turns the requirements into manageable steps. You clarify what the AI literacy obligation under Article 4 means in concrete terms, how to organise training in a verifiable way and what an internal AI policy should cover. You also examine the interfaces with the GDPR, such as legal bases, data protection impact assessments and automated decision-making. You leave with an AI inventory template, a draft policy and a clear compliance roadmap for your area of work.

Founders have to juggle many roles with a small team and limited budget: product, sales, marketing, finance, hiring and investor relations. Generative AI acts like an extra team member. It helps with market research and competitor analysis, drafts pitch decks and investor updates, writes landing pages and sales emails, structures customer interviews and supports the financial model. With vibe coding, prototypes, clickable mock-ups and internal tools come together in hours rather than weeks, so hypotheses can be tested in the market much sooner. AI agents automate lead research, onboarding emails or support replies. The key is to combine speed with critical review and to get the legal basics right from day one.

The course is delivered live – either online in a virtual classroom or on-site in our training rooms in Munich, Salzburg, Berlin, Augsburg, Hanover, Bremen, Stuttgart and Kaiserslautern. We can also run it exclusively for your team.

Who is this course for?

  • Early-stage founders
  • Founding teams in incubators and accelerators
  • Early employees at startups
  • Corporate venturing and intrapreneurship teams
  • Solo entrepreneurs with product ideas

Typical challenges we address

  • Little time and few resources for many parallel tasks
  • Hypotheses need to be validated quickly and cheaply
  • Heavy effort for pitching, investor relations and grant applications
  • No in-house experts for legal, finance and development in the early stage

What you will be able to do

  • You can explain how the EU AI Act is structured and assign your organisation to the correct roles.
  • You can classify the AI applications in use by risk category and maintain an AI inventory.
  • You can name the specific obligations of deployers and derive appropriate measures.
  • You can develop an AI literacy concept under Article 4 and a draft internal AI policy.
  • Validate business ideas faster with AI through research, interviews and prototypes.
  • Produce pitch decks, investor updates and sales materials efficiently with AI.
  • Build simple prototypes and internal tools through vibe coding and understand their limits.

Course outline

Module 1 Structure and logic of the EU AI Act
  • Objectives, scope and phased application of the regulation
  • Roles at a glance: provider, deployer, importer and distributor
  • The risk-based approach: prohibited practices, high risk, limited risk and minimal risk
  • Specific rules for general-purpose AI models
Module 2 Classifying risk in practice
  • Prohibited practices such as social scoring or emotion recognition in the workplace
  • High-risk areas under Annex III, including recruitment, creditworthiness and education
  • Transparency obligations for chatbots, synthetic content and deepfakes
  • Recording and classifying your own AI applications in an AI inventory
Module 3 Obligations for deployers of AI systems
  • Use in line with instructions and human oversight by competent staff
  • Input data quality, monitoring of operation and retention of logs
  • Informing employees and affected persons and reporting serious incidents
  • Fundamental rights impact assessment: when it is required and how it works
Module 4 AI literacy under Art. 4 and internal AI policy
  • What sufficient AI literacy means for different roles
  • Designing training concepts and documenting measures verifiably
  • Components of an AI policy: approved tools, data classes, approvals and labelling
  • Responsibilities, AI officers and involving the works council and IT
Module 5 GDPR interfaces and governance
  • Legal bases, purpose limitation and data minimisation when using AI
  • Data protection impact assessment and its relationship to the fundamental rights assessment
  • Automated individual decisions, data subject rights and data processing agreements
  • Compliance roadmap: priorities, ownership and regular review
Module 6 Practice lab: Founders & Startups
  • Market and competitor analysis
  • Analysing customer interviews
  • Pitch decks and investor updates
  • Prototypes via vibe coding
  • Sales and marketing
  • Grants and business plans
Module 7 Data protection, quality & transfer to daily work
  • Startups must comply with the GDPR, imprint requirements and unfair competition law from the outset, for example for waitlists, newsletters and outreach. For AI-based products, the EU AI Act, copyright in generated content, code licences and the confidentiality of investor and customer data must be considered.
  • Ground rules for safe AI use in your team
  • Checking results: facts, sources, tests and the four-eyes principle
  • Personal action plan for the next 30 days
  • Open questions, outlook and resources for further learning

Practical scenarios from your field

Market and competitor analysis

AI structures market segments, target groups and competitors, derives positioning options and helps identify research sources – figures and facts are then backed up with reliable references.

Analysing customer interviews

Guides for problem interviews are created, notes are analysed for pain points, willingness to pay and quotes, and insights are condensed for the next iteration.

Pitch decks and investor updates

Storyline, slide copy and answers to typical investor questions are developed; regular updates for investors and advisers are generated from KPIs and milestones. Investors stay informed with little effort.

Prototypes via vibe coding

Landing pages, clickable prototypes and simple MVPs are built with AI coding tools to test demand and user behaviour before investing in professional development. Scaling up follows once demand is confirmed.

Sales and marketing

Ideal customer profiles, outreach sequences, website copy and social posts are written for the target audience and prepared in variants for A/B testing. Test results feed straight into the next iteration.

Grants and business plans

AI helps make sense of funding programmes, structure applications and business plans and explain financial assumptions clearly; the figures themselves are checked by an expert.

Prerequisites

No legal background is required. A basic knowledge of the GDPR and an overview of the AI applications used or planned in your area are helpful. A startup idea or a role in a young company; no programming skills required.

Technical requirements

All you need is a laptop with an up-to-date browser and an office suite for working with templates. No special AI licences are necessary.

Data protection & compliance

Startups must comply with the GDPR, imprint requirements and unfair competition law from the outset, for example for waitlists, newsletters and outreach. For AI-based products, the EU AI Act, copyright in generated content, code licences and the confidentiality of investor and customer data must be considered.

Dates & locations

For every location we suggest a date roughly four weeks ahead. Your preferred date is always possible.

  • Munich Mon, 14 December 2026 6 hrs Request
  • Salzburg Tue, 15 December 2026 6 hrs Request
  • Berlin Fri, 11 December 2026 6 hrs Request
  • Augsburg Mon, 14 December 2026 6 hrs Request
  • Hanover Tue, 15 December 2026 6 hrs Request
  • Bremen Wed, 16 December 2026 6 hrs Request
  • Stuttgart Tue, 15 December 2026 6 hrs Request
  • Kaiserslautern Tue, 15 December 2026 6 hrs Request
  • Online Wed, 16 December 2026 6 hrs Request

Frequently asked questions

Does the EU AI Act apply to companies that only use AI tools?

Yes. Anyone using AI systems under their own authority in a professional context is a deployer. All deployers must, in particular, ensure that their staff have sufficient AI literacy. Where high-risk systems are used, for example in recruitment, further obligations apply, such as human oversight, logging and informing the people affected.

Does this course satisfy the training obligation under Article 4?

The course covers core AI literacy content and you receive a certificate of attendance that you can add to your documentation. However, Article 4 requires measures tailored to role, prior knowledge and context of use. That is why you also learn how to set up and maintain your own AI literacy concept for your organisation.

Does the course replace legal advice?

No. The training provides practical knowledge for specialists and managers so they can interpret requirements, ask precise questions and implement first measures. For binding assessments of individual systems, especially in high-risk areas, you should involve your legal department, your data protection officer or external specialist lawyers.

Can I build an MVP with AI without knowing how to code?

For landing pages, clickable prototypes and simple web apps, yes – often enough to test demand. For a scalable, secure product handling user data and payments, however, you need development expertise. The course shows where that line lies and how to hand prototypes over cleanly to developers.

Can investors tell a pitch deck was written by AI?

Generic copy stands out. What matters is that the storyline, numbers and insights come from your own work. AI helps you structure, sharpen and prepare for tough questions. In the course we practise making your story more compelling with AI without sounding interchangeable.

How much does “EU AI Act & AI Compliance for Founders and Startups” cost?

The course costs a flat €949 plus VAT per participant – whether online or on-site. This includes 6 hours of live training with a trainer, course materials, a lab environment and a certificate of attendance.

Can I suggest my own date?

Yes. For every location we suggest a date roughly four weeks ahead. In the request form you can always describe your preferred date or period in free text – we check availability and get back to you within one working day.

Is the course online or on-site?

Both are possible: live online in a virtual classroom or on-site in Munich, Salzburg, Berlin, Augsburg, Hanover, Bremen, Stuttgart and Kaiserslautern. We can also run the course exclusively for your team.

Can the course be tailored to our team?

Yes. Tailor-made courses cost approx. €4,500 more, depending on the topic and by arrangement. We agree content, examples and exercises with you in advance.

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