AI State Regulatory Frontiers: Inside the New Wave of State AI Laws

In this episode of Regulatory Oversight, host Ashley Taylor continues the multipart series on artificial intelligence with colleagues Ghillaine Reid, David Stauss, and Matt Berns for a practical look at how states are actually regulating AI in 2025–26. Framed through a consumer protection lens, the discussion moves beyond theoretical federal proposals to real bills and regulations moving through state legislatures today.

David surveys the national landscape, noting that nearly all state legislatures are active and that roughly 500 AI-related bills have been introduced, with major themes around pricing rules, consumer-facing interactive AI, health-related AI, provenance requirements, and the Colorado AI Act. Matt then focuses on the rapid growth of algorithmic pricing laws — 2025 statutes in Connecticut, New York, and California restricting the use of competitors’ data and requiring disclosure of personalized or “surveillance” pricing, as well as 2026 proposals in states like Maryland, New Jersey, and California that increasingly target personalized pricing in groceries and other essential sectors. Ghillaine turns to transparency in synthetic content, contrasting New York’s broad but stalled GenAI warning bill with its more precise “synthetic performers” law and tying those developments to California’s AI Transparency Act (SB 942), which requires watermarking and detection tools for large generative AI platforms.

The conversation rounds out with an overview of new state rules on chatbots and “companion AI,” particularly in California, New York, and other states, describing requirements to clearly disclose when users — especially minors — are interacting with AI, protocols for handling suicidal ideation, and growing concerns over mental health use cases and broad private rights of action.