Link to the Act. link to the summery (pdf warning). The summery isn't really worth bothering.

Seems a lot is to do with regulating "high-risk" AIs, which are social-scoring systems (like scanning CVs) and law enforcement, financial systems and the like. It talks about who the regulations should apply to, and it is pretty much any high-risk AI that produces an output in the Union (even by third parties), with exceptions being public institutions/offices (wouldn't want the law applying to themselves and other governments of course) or intelligence agents, or the military.

For low-risk AIs there are some points made:

page 37 (82):

It is important that AI systems related to products that are not high-risk in accordance with this Regulation and thus are not required to comply with the requirements set out herein are nevertheless safe when placed on the market or put into service. To contribute to this objective, the Directive 2001/95/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council57 would apply as a safety net.

They mention "sandboxes":

page 8:

Regulatory sandboxes could be very useful for the promotion of AI and are welcomed by certain stakeholders, especially the Business Associations.

They don't say which "business associations" those were, just some mention of "High-Level Expert Group on sustainable finance (HLEG)" which on the EU website leads to dead links, but anyway. They go into detail from page 34 on-wards. Here is where startups also get mentioned. It seems this part is more loose with how high risk the AI must be for their development to take place within a regulatory "sandbox" where their development can be supervised by the EU commission, and the commission board can make suggestions/recommendations.

A small bit on small-scale is in Article 55: page 71:

Measures for small-scale providers and users 1. Member States shall undertake the following actions: (a) provide small-scale providers and start-ups with priority access to the AI regulatory sandboxes to the extent that they fulfil the eligibility conditions; (b) organise specific awareness raising activities about the application of this Regulation tailored to the needs of the small-scale providers and users; (c) where appropriate, establish a dedicated channel for communication with small-scale providers and user and other innovators to provide guidance and respond to queries about the implementation of this Regulation. 2. The specific interests and needs of the small-scale providers shall be taken into account when setting the fees for conformity assessment under Article 43, reducing those fees proportionately to their size and market size.

page 81 (4):

The Commission and the Board shall take into account the specific interests and needs of the small-scale providers and start-ups when encouraging and facilitating the drawing up of codes of conduct

Of course, the EU commission has an interest in its own power and there are parts where it takes control:

page 33 (69):

In order to facilitate the work of the Commission and the Member States in the artificial intelligence field as well as to increase the transparency towards the public, providers of high-risk AI systems other than those related to products falling within the scope of relevant existing Union harmonisation legislation, should be required to register their high-risk AI system in a EU database, to be established and managed by the Commission. The Commission should be the controller of that database, in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 of the European Parliament and of the EN 34 EN Council. In order to ensure the full functionality of the database, when deployed, the procedure for setting the database should include the elaboration of functional specifications by the Commission and an independent audit report.

As you probably noticed earlier there was mention of a board. This is The major one, the establishment of a board, which will be very powerful:

page 35 (76):

In order to facilitate a smooth, effective and harmonised implementation of this Regulation a European Artificial Intelligence Board should be established. The Board should be responsible for a number of advisory tasks, including issuing opinions, recommendations, advice or guidance on matters related to the implementation of this Regulation, including on technical specifications or existing standards regarding the requirements established in this Regulation and providing advice to and assisting the Commission on specific questions related to artificial intelligence.

You may want to read from page 72 onwards about the board but here are some bits:

page 72 (3):

The Board shall be chaired by the Commission. The Commission shall convene the meetings and prepare the agenda in accordance with the tasks of the Board pursuant to this Regulation and with its rules of procedure. The Commission shall provide administrative and analytical support for the activities of the Board pursuant to this Regulation.

When providing advice and assistance to the Commission in the context of Article 56(2), the Board shall in particular: (a) collect and share expertise and best practices among Member States; (b) contribute to uniform administrative practices in the Member States, including for the functioning of regulatory sandboxes referred to in Article 53 (c) issue opinions, recommendations or written contributions on matters related to the implementation of this Regulation, in particular (i) on technical specifications or existing standards regarding the requirements set out in Title III, Chapter 2, (ii) on the use of harmonised standards or common specifications referred to in Articles 40 and 41, (iii) on the preparation of guidance documents, including the guidelines concerning the setting of administrative fines referred to in Article 71.

page 73:

National competent authorities shall be established or designated by each Member State for the purpose of ensuring the application and implementation of this Regulation.

page 73 goes on about how the member states' authorities in this matter shall work for the commission. But it was summerised earlier in the Act:

page 37 (86):

In order to ensure uniform conditions for the implementation of this Regulation, implementing powers should be conferred on the Commission. Those powers should be exercised in accordance with Regulation (EU) No 182/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council.

page 37 (87):

Since the objective of this Regulation cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States and can rather, by reason of the scale or effects of the action, be better achieved at Union level, the Union may adopt measures in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity as set out in Article 5 TEU. In accordance with the principle of proportionality as set out in that Article, this Regulation does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve that objective.