Das EU-Digitalrecht wird immer komplexer – der AI Act zeigt dies mit seinem vielschichtigen Geflecht aus Zuständigkeiten, Aufsicht und Durchsetzung auf EU- und nationaler Ebene besonders deutlich. Der interdisziplinäre Beitrag von Magdalena Stratmann, Dr. Tobias Mast et al., der im Projekt „Neue Regulierungsansätze für algorithmische Systeme in der öffentlichen Kommunikation“ (STEAM) entstanden ist, stellt mit dem Architectural Ecosystem Modeling eine visuelle Methode vor, um diese institutionellen Strukturen des AI Act sichtbar zu machen, Verantwortlichkeiten und Abhängigkeiten zu analysieren und so Lücken, Doppelungen sowie Koordinationspotenziale im Regulierungsgefüge zu erkennen.
Der Beitrag ist Open Access hier verfügbar.
Abstract
European Union (EU) digital law is increasingly characterized by complex multi-level regulatory structures that challenge traditional legal analysis. The Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act exemplifies this trend, with its broad range of substantive provisions that envisage diverse mechanisms of oversight, implementation, and enforcement by different– often interdependent – institutions at both the EU and national levels. This article introduces architectural ecosystem modeling as a novel, visualization-based method for mapping and analyzing the institutional regulatory structures embedded in EU legal acts. Focusing on the AI Act, we demonstrate how this approach can reveal the distribution of regulatory roles, responsibilities, and interdependencies among different actors, enabling clearer insights into the Act’s implementation and oversight framework. In distinction to other approaches, our approach does not aim to support individual compliance assessment but instead targets, in particular, EU and national authorities, policymakers, and legislators seeking to understand the regulatory structures of the AI Act. By visually representing complex regulatory arrangements, architectural ecosystem modeling can help identify regulatory redundancies, gaps, and opportunities for improved cooperation and coordination. We further explore how the approach could be applied more broadly, how it might be enhanced by digitalization and how it might ultimately be scaled through automation.
Stratmann, M., Mast, T., Spürkel, J., Burmeister, F., Kurtz, C. Soulier, E.: Visualizing regulatory ecosystems: A new approach to mapping EU regulations as architectures – The case of the AI act. In: Computer Law & Security Review (61/2026). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clsr.2026.106333