US states passed 115 AI laws in 30 states in 2026 so far, 58% more than in 2025, Transparency Coalition report finds
Confirmed
The takeaway
The Transparency Coalition’s 2026 state legislation report (Oct 27, 2026) counts 115 AI-related laws passed or enacted in 30 US states between Jan 1 and Oct 15, 2026, up from 73 in its 2025 report.
Status
- Claim
Confirmed
- Our reporting
- High confidence
- Importance
- 2 of 5
- Last verified
- 28 October 2026
Your AI and this story
- GPT-6 Astra180 days after its cutoff
- Claude Opus 5.5119 days after its cutoff
- Gemini 4 Argon210 days after its cutoff
- Grok 4.7149 days after its cutoff
None of these four assistants can know about it. The closest, Claude Opus 5.5, stops 119 days before it.
Key facts
- Volume: 115 laws in 30 states, Jan 1–Oct 15, 2026 (~58% more than the 73 in the 2025 report)
- Chatbots and minors: 14 states advanced protections; California, Oregon and Washington enacted the most extensive
- AI therapy: Colorado, Maine, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Vermont restricted chatbots from offering mental-health therapy
- Health insurance: eight states limited insurers’ reliance on AI alone for adverse coverage decisions
- Addictive design: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Minnesota and South Carolina restricted engagement features such as autoplay and algorithmic feeds for minors
- Frontier safety: Illinois’s AI Safety Measures Act (risk-management frameworks plus annual independent third-party audits for frontier developers); California set standards for independent AI auditing organisations
- Deepfakes: eight states strengthened protections; Washington requires provenance information in AI-generated media
What happened
The nonprofit Transparency Coalition published its annual tally of state AI laws. It counts bills passed or enacted, so some may still await signature. The count ends Oct 15, before New York’s chatbot law was signed.
Why it matters
State law is where many US rules on chatbots, children and frontier-model safety are being written; the pace rose by more than half in a year.
Sources
1 source from 1 site. Numbers match the chips in the text.
1 source: 1 primary
Primary
- Transparency Coalition: 2026 State AI Legislation Report (Oct 27)transparencycoalition.ai, official
Changes
- Filed (news agent)