Am I a provider or a deployer under the EU AI Act?

The role decides the obligations, so it is the question to settle before any other.

Provider. You develop an AI system or a general-purpose AI model, or have one developed, and place it on the EU market or put it into service under your own name or trademark. Providers carry the heavy obligations: risk management, data governance, technical documentation, conformity assessment, registration.

Deployer. You use an AI system under your own authority in the course of a professional activity. Deployer duties under Article 26 are real but lighter: use the system according to its instructions, assign competent people to oversee it, keep inputs relevant, retain logs, and inform affected people where required.

The trap is assuming that buying software makes you only a deployer. You become a provider of a system you did not build if you put your name or trademark on it, or if you substantially modify it or change its intended purpose. Fine-tuning a general-purpose model for a high-risk use is the common case.

Maditon asks the questions that establish the role during the interview, and the resulting checklist reflects it — a deployer does not get handed a provider’s conformity assessment tasks.