BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Key guidance to help thousands of companies comply with the European Union's landmark artificial intelligence rules may come at the end of the year, the European Commission said on Thursday, marking a six-month delay.

"On the AI Act's GPAI rules, the European AI Board is discussing the timing to implement the Code of Practice, with the end of 2025 being considered," a Commission spokesperson said.

GPAI refers to large language models such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and similar models launched by Google and Mistral. The Commission had originally set May 2 as the deadline for the introduction of the Code of Practice.