Compliance as Code: Why the EU AI Act Will Force Runtime Enforcement in 2026

For years, companies approached AI governance the same way they approached corporate ethics statements: Write a policy. Publish a framework. Create internal guidelines. Hope teams follow them. That model is failing. As major portions of the European Union AI Act move into full enforcement, organizations deploying high-risk AI systems are facing a much stricter reality. Regulators are no longer asking for aspirational governance language. They want technical evidence. Not policy PDFs. Not slide d