Lawmakers to Decide the Future of Colorado’s AI Law
Key highlights this week:
We’re tracking 1,090 bills in all 50 states related to AI during the 2025 legislative session.
California lawmakers return to Sacramento, ready to send a raft of AI bills to the governor this month.
Illinois’ governor signed five AI-related bills into law this week.
And Colorado enters a special session to decide how best to amend its first-in-the-nation algorithmic discrimination law before it goes into effect next year, which is the subject of this week’s deep dive.
In 2024, Colorado became the first state in the nation to enact a broad algorithmic discrimination law with SB 205. The law aimed to place guardrails on the growing use of artificial intelligence by requiring developers and deployers of “high-risk” systems to use reasonable care to prevent algorithmic discrimination and to conduct impact assessments when AI systems were used in consequential decisions. But even upon signing the bill, Gov. Jared Polis (D) acknowledged that changes would have to be made before the bill took effect in February of 2026. Colorado lawmakers were unable to find a solution earlier this year and will redouble their efforts during a special session, hoping to revise the law to mitigate potential harms while also allowing AI to flourish as an industry.
Lawmakers in Colorado returned Thursday for a special session to address budget shortfalls caused by changes to the tax code from the federal budget bill. But the session also gives them an opportunity to accomplish what they were unable to finish earlier this year — amend the AI law. Legislators have proposed four competing bills so far, each offering a different path. Two have Republican sponsors and are unlikely to gain much traction. That leaves two other bills competing for how the state’s AI regulation will move going forward.
