Nicosia, Cyprus. Cyprus concluded its six-month presidency of the Council of the European Union at the end of June after steering the Council toward approval of an AI Act simplification package. Attention is now turning to AI governance within the country’s professional services sector.
Survey findings
A recent survey of 50 Cyprus-based legal practices found that 84% of firms said staff routinely use public AI platforms, including tools in the ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Copilot families, for drafting and research.
Only 5% of respondents said AI oversight had been escalated to a dedicated risk, operations or IT committee. Meanwhile, 65% said they could not confirm that their obligations under the AI Act or the General Data Protection Regulation had been fully mapped or audited.
Fourteen percent of firms said generative AI tools were formally prohibited on their networks but remained in use.
Governance proposals
The article argues that Cyprus’s compact legal and corporate services sector could allow professional associations and regulators to develop a common AI governance standard more quickly than larger jurisdictions.
It proposes a zero-trust standard for professional services, including named responsibility, documented data minimisation and verifiable technical controls. Such a framework could provide audited and demonstrable AI governance for businesses entering the European Union through Cyprus.
Implementation timeline
The article says Cyprus’s recent experience chairing EU discussions on AI regulation could support domestic action. It identifies the period before 2 August as a key timeframe for determining whether the country can strengthen its own AI governance arrangements.
