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The phenomenon whereby EU regulation becomes the global default through market access requirements, even for organizations headquartered outside the EU.
Coined by legal scholar Anu Bradford, the Brussels Effect describes how EU regulations like GDPR and the EU AI Act extend their reach worldwide. Multinational companies typically adopt the strictest applicable standard rather than maintaining separate compliance regimes per jurisdiction, making the EU's approach the de facto global baseline. The EU AI Act is expected to follow this pattern, with US, UK, and Asian enterprises building EU-compliant AI governance even where local law would require less.
Real world example:
A US fintech with European customers builds its AI governance program to EU AI Act standards and applies that program globally - rather than maintaining a separate (looser) US-only governance regime.
