Who Regulates Artificial Intelligence
Key takeaways
- Congress has not passed a comprehensive AI law, so federal policy comes mainly from executive orders and existing laws.
- The July 2025 AI Action Plan focuses on speeding innovation, building data centers and power, and exporting American AI, replacing a 2023 order focused on safety.
- Agencies such as the FTC, EEOC, FDA, and SEC apply existing laws on fraud, discrimination, and safety to AI products.
- States enacted more than 100 AI measures in 2025, including Colorado's law on algorithmic discrimination and California's frontier model safety law.
- A December 2025 executive order directed the Justice Department to challenge state AI laws, and the White House has asked Congress to preempt them.
- Export controls on advanced chips are a central tool of AI policy toward China.
Artificial intelligence is changing work, media, medicine, and national security faster than laws can keep up. In the United States, rules for AI come from a mix of presidential orders, agencies applying older laws, a growing number of state laws, and trade controls.
This guide explains who has power over AI and the main debates, which cut across party lines in unusual ways.
A 2023 executive order required developers of the most powerful models to share safety test results and directed agencies to manage AI risks. It was revoked in January 2025, and the July 2025 AI Action Plan shifted the focus to speed, infrastructure, and exports, with orders to fast-track data center permits and to require ideologically neutral chatbots in government. A November 2025 order launched the Genesis Mission to use AI in federal research.
Advanced chips are the bottleneck for AI, and the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security limits exports of the most powerful chips and chipmaking tools to China, rules that have shifted between administrations and drawn industry lobbying. The 2022 CHIPS and Science Act funded new chip factories in the United States. The enormous electricity demand of AI data centers has also made energy policy part of AI policy.
The Center for AI Standards and Innovation at NIST tests advanced models for national security risks under voluntary agreements with developers and publishes standards. The Federal Trade Commission polices deceptive AI claims and unfair practices, the EEOC applies job discrimination law to AI hiring tools, the FDA reviews AI medical devices, and the Copyright Office has said works made entirely by AI cannot be copyrighted. Agencies also write rules for their own use of AI.
Congress has held many hearings and passed narrow laws, such as a 2025 law criminalizing nonconsensual sexual deepfakes, but has not passed a comprehensive AI law. Instead, AI is governed by existing laws on consumer protection, discrimination, privacy, product safety, and copyright, by presidential orders, and by states. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy leads federal AI policy.
States have been most active. About 38 states enacted AI measures in 2025, on deepfakes in elections and pornography, chatbots and children, AI in hiring and health insurance, and government use of AI. Colorado's AI Act, taking effect June 30, 2026, requires care to prevent discrimination by high-risk systems, and California's SB 53 requires frontier developers to publish safety plans and report incidents. Texas, Illinois, Utah, and New York have their own laws.
In July 2025 the Senate voted 99 to 1 against a 10-year moratorium on state AI laws. A December 2025 executive order created a Justice Department task force to challenge state laws, and in March 2026 the White House asked Congress to override burdensome ones. Supporters of a single national standard say 50 different laws will hamper American companies against China. Critics, including many Republican governors and Democrats, say states must protect children, workers, and consumers when Washington does not, and only Congress can preempt state law.
See how regulations are made in how federal regulations are made, state and federal roles in states vs. federal: who does what, or energy for data centers in who controls energy.