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Right to explanation (AI Act Art. 86)

By Updated

The right of a person affected by a deployer's decision based on an Annex III high-risk system's output, with legal or similarly significant adverse effects, to clear and meaningful explanations of the system's role and the main elements of the decision, where Union law does not already provide it 1.

Developed in
ch. 18, Explanation and notice to affected people
Chapters
ch. 16, Fairness & XAI · ch. 18, EU AI Act · ch. 19, Privacy & AI
Contrast with
Explainability
Source
1 numbered reference, listed below

Where it is used

3 chapters of the Body of Knowledge use the term. Each link opens the first section that does.

  • Explanation record

    The evidence artefact for one explained decision: model version, explanation method and version, baseline, reason codes, counterfactual, template, audience…

  • Annex III

    The AI Act annex listing high-risk use cases (biometrics, critical infrastructure, education, employment, essential services, law enforcement, migration…

  • Deployer

    Under the EU AI Act, whoever uses an AI system under its own authority, other than in a purely personal, non-professional activity.

Sources

  1. [1] Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (AI Act), consolidated text as amended by Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 (Digital Omnibus on AI, in force 27 Jul 2026; definitions in Art. 3, incl. 3(1), 3(3) to 3(14), 3(14b), 3(20), 3(22), 3(23), 3(29) to 3(32), 3(49), 3(55) to 3(57), 3(60), 3(61), 3(63), 3(68); Arts. 4, 5, 6 (incl. 6(3) third subparagraph, profiling), 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 17, 22 to 27 (incl. 26(11)), 40, 41, 43, 47, 48, 50, 53 (incl. 53(1)(c)), 55, 57, 60, 72, 73, 86; Annexes I, III, IV). Publications Office of the EU (EUR-Lex). 2026-07-27. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1689/2026-07-27/eng (verified: primary)

Definitions of legal terms paraphrase the cited text, which governs. Dated statements are as of .

Cite this term

García Aibar, J. (2026). Right to explanation (AI Act Art. 86). In AI Governance Engineering: The Thesis & Body of Knowledge (v0.5.0), Glossary. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22956197. https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/right-to-explanation-ai-act-art-86. CC BY 4.0

BibTeX

@misc{aige2026righttoexplanationaiactart86,
  author  = {Jorge García Aibar},
  title   = {{Right to explanation (AI Act Art. 86)}},
  note    = {Glossary, AI Governance Engineering: The Thesis \& Body of Knowledge, version 0.5.0},
  year    = {2026},
  doi     = {10.5281/zenodo.22956197},
  url     = {https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/right-to-explanation-ai-act-art-86}
}