First-order effects

• EU negotiators drafting the AI Act face direct pressure on its central architecture: which systems get classified high-risk, and whether some categories are prohibited entirely rather than merely regulated.
• Organizations that previously lobbied case-by-case (gender recognition, biometric uses) have consolidated into a broader bloc with leverage to shape the definitional language every downstream obligation hangs on.

Second-order effects

• Industry will counter-mobilize around scope: experts had already warned the draft could impose legal liability on general-purpose AI systems while undermining their development, so any widening of high-risk categories sharpens that fight over how the rules treat foundational models.

Third-order effects

• The Act's final text is being negotiated between two organized camps — civil-society coalitions pushing broader classifications and bans versus coordinated corporate pressure, seen later when more than 24 companies warned in a Meta-coordinated letter about regulatory costs and again when Alphabet, Meta, Mistral, and ASML urged a delay the Commission refused. Whichever side moves the definitions wins structurally, since classification determines everything else.
• If definitional expansion becomes standard practice each time the law is revisited, the EU's risk-tiering approach turns into a recurring battleground rather than a one-time settlement — a dynamic echoed internationally by the call from 200+ figures for development 'red lines' by end of 2026.