AI agents -- systems that can independently take actions to pursue complex goals with only limited human oversight -- have entered the mainstream. These systems are now being widely used to produce software, conduct business activities, and automate everyday personal tasks. While AI agents implicate many areas of law, ranging from agency law and contracts to tort liability and labor law, they present particularly pressing questions for the most globally consequential AI regulation: the European Union's AI Act. Promulgated prior to the development and widespread use of AI agents, the EU AI Act faces significant obstacles in confronting the governance challenges arising from this transformative technology, such as performance failures in autonomous task execution, the risk of misuse of agents by malicious actors, and unequal access to the economic opportunities afforded by AI agents. We systematically analyze the EU AI Act's response to these challenges, focusing on both the substantive provisions of the regulation and, crucially, the institutional frameworks that aim to support its implementation. Our analysis of the Act's allocation of monitoring and enforcement responsibilities, reliance on industry self-regulation, and level of government resourcing illustrates how a regulatory framework designed for conventional AI systems can be ill-suited to AI agents. Taken together, our findings suggest that policymakers in the EU and beyond will need to change course, and soon, if they are to effectively govern the next generation of AI technology.

翻译：人工智能智能体——能够在有限人类监督下独立采取行动以实现复杂目标的系统——已进入主流应用。这些系统现被广泛用于软件开发、商业运营以及个人日常事务的自动化处理。尽管人工智能智能体涉及从代理法、合同法到侵权责任与劳动法等诸多法律领域，但其给当前最具全球影响力的AI监管法规——欧盟《人工智能法案》带来了尤为紧迫的挑战。该法案出台时尚未预见AI智能体的大规模开发与应用，因此在应对这项变革性技术带来的治理难题时面临重大障碍，例如自主任务执行中的性能故障、恶意行为者滥用智能体的风险，以及AI智能体所创造经济机遇的不平等获取。我们系统分析了欧盟《人工智能法案》应对这些挑战的方案，重点关注法规的实质性条款，以及更关键的旨在支撑其实施的制度框架。通过对该法案在监管与执法责任分配、行业自律依赖程度及政府资源投入水平等方面的分析，我们揭示了为传统AI系统设计的监管框架如何难以适应AI智能体。综合研究结果表明，欧盟及其他地区的决策者若要有效治理下一代人工智能技术，必须且亟需调整政策方向。