In all the headlines this spring about the end of the pandemic, it would have been easy to miss the European Union’s (EU) announcement of a new set of proposed rules that would regulate or even ban a long list of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based technologies. Yet, it would be a shame to miss the significance of the European Artificial Intelligence Act, for its proposals are remarkable for three reasons. First, they aim to bring AI under regulatory control for the first time. Second, they offer specific critiques of technologies now widely used in places like China and the U.S. Lastly, they are a signal to Big Tech that Europe’s concerns with AI will lead it down a different path than the rest of the world. The Act is the most important and public international effort to regulate AI to date. It covers everything from facial recognition to autonomous driving to the algorithms that drive online advertising, automated hiring, and credit scoring. Indeed, the proposals could help shape global views and regulations around these new and controversial technologies for the next decade.