# A Framework for Compliance with Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises
## 5 Conclusions  
This paper addresses a research problem related to how SMEs, in the field of AI systems, can better comply with the provisions of the EU AI Act during the development life cycle, given their constraints, limited financing and human capital.  
The proposed framework intends to resolve this problem by incorporating two main attributes. The first one is its focus on compliance with the Regulation's provisions, which are mapped to the second attribute, the development lifecycle phases of the spiral SDLC model. The novelty of this paper compared to existing work is that it is the first application of any SDLC to the EU AI Act and the first detailed mapping of the AI Act's provisions to the phases of the spiral model.  
Key contributions for SMEs using this framework include better management of their limited resources, addressing the back-office workload caused by the complexity of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, and the concurrent management of the main development lifecycle of the AI system, through the mapping of the provisions of the Act to the phases of the model. We tried to map all relevant provisions of the AI Act to the spiral SDLC model phases to provide a balanced, unified guide. The framework remains as generic as possible, based on the AI Act, which is applicable to all EU member states.  
However, it remains to evaluate this framework for its effectiveness through an empirical study that should include field testing in a set of diverse SMEs in the AI industry. The results would lead to documenting the challenges and the successes during actual implementation. The feedback given on the usability and the comprehensiveness of the framework will allow for its refinement and improvement. Other limitations are related to the possible differences in national laws in member states, which may exist because of their specific needs preceding the application of the AI Act but which did not fall within the scope of this research. Some national laws were already in place in some European countries because of their specific needs and the lack of the AI Act. The AI regulation after its publication is on top of all national laws; however, it is not in the scope of the framework to deal with national needs rather than focusing on the provisions of the AI Act.  
Future work may include an additional layer in this framework, dealing with auditing each task of the development phases vis-a-vis the corresponding provisions of the EU AI Act. A final thought about this paper is that it can lead to further research in performance metrics and to a solid framework for developing AI systems in accordance with the EU AI Act.  
Conceptualization, S.S. and C.L.; methodology, S.S.; writing--original draft preparation, S.S.; review and editing, C.L.; supervision, C.L. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.  
**Funding:** This research has been partially funded by the Research Center of the University of Piraeus.  
**Data Availability Statement:** No new data were created or analyzed in this study. Data sharing is not applicable to this article.  
**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.