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The EU AI Act in Practice

What This Means for Employees: Information, Co-Determination, Works Councils

Two rights get confused here almost every time: the European information right under the AI Act and the German works council's co-determination right. They're not the same thing – and satisfying only one of them doesn't cleanly close out an AI rollout at work.

Four practical cases – worth remembering

Try it yourself: without or with a works agreement on AI?

Without agreementWith agreement

A performance-monitoring tool is introduced without works council involvement.

Risk: an injunction against the deployment and exclusion of the collected data as evidence.

Two separate duties that are often confused

The EU AI Act itself requires an information duty under Art. 26(7): employers must inform employees and their representatives before a high-risk AI system is put into operation at the workplace. That's EU law, applying uniformly across all member states – and it's explicitly NOT the same as the German co-determination duty under §87 of the Works Constitution Act (Betriebsverfassungsgesetz, BetrVG). Satisfying one duty doesn't automatically take care of the other.

The information duty (Art. 26(7))

This duty is comparatively light: affected employees and their representatives must be informed before a system goes live, about which system is being used and for what purpose. A pure information right – not a right to prevent or shape the rollout.

German co-determination (§87 BetrVG) goes further

German works constitution law goes considerably further: AI tools regularly qualify as technical devices for monitoring behaviour or performance – and that triggers a genuine co-determination right for the works council, not just an information duty. The employer must inform the works council of the planned rollout in good time and provide the necessary documentation. If a works council is bypassed, real risks in practice include an injunction against the deployment and an exclusion of the collected data as evidence. In practice, co-determination almost always results in a dedicated works agreement on AI (KI-Betriebsvereinbarung) – a document that concretely regulates the purpose, scope, data use, and safeguards of the AI deployment.

Practice section: what this means for you as an employee – and for you as a business owner

For employees: you have an information right directly from the AI Act – you can specifically ask which system is being used and for what purpose. If your company has a works council, it additionally has its own co-determination right over monitoring and performance-evaluation tools – your works council can and should be involved in such rollouts, not just informed afterwards. For business owners: sequencing matters. Involving the works council early, before a system is live, is considerably lower-risk than legitimising it after the fact – and a negotiated works agreement on AI creates legal certainty for both sides, instead of case-by-case disputes over every new feature. This classification doesn't replace case-by-case legal advice – for a specific rollout, employment law and the works council belong at the table early.

The key points

  • The EU information duty (Art. 26(7)) and German co-determination (§87 BetrVG) are two separate legal bases – satisfying one doesn't replace the other.
  • AI tools often qualify as a technical monitoring device and thereby trigger a genuine works council co-determination right, not just an information duty.
  • If the works council is bypassed, an injunction and exclusion of evidence are real risks in practice.
  • A works agreement on AI is, in practice in 2026, almost always the clean way to bindingly regulate purpose, data use, and safeguards.
  • Employees have their own independent information right – regardless of whether a works council exists at the company.

→ The EU AI Act: what companies really need to know – and what's just panic

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Are the information duty under Art. 26(7) AI Act and German co-determination under §87 BetrVG the same thing?

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