Anthropic is quietly running a state by state playbook to shape AI law while Washington stalls

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With federal AI legislation stuck in Congress, Anthropic has spent since 2024, well ahead of most other AI companies, actively working with state legislators to shape AI bills directly rather than simply opposing regulation outright. The company was one of the only major labs to speak positively about California's SB 1047 in 2024, a bill that became the template for the state law eventually signed afterward, and has continued that engagement across statehouses since

The strategy sits in contrast to firms that oppose nearly every state AI bill on principle. Anthropic has publicly acknowledged that transparency requirements alone are no longer sufficient given how fast AI capability is accelerating, while simultaneously maintaining that Congress can only legitimately preempt state law if it first passes a genuinely strong federal framework of its own, not just a blanket ban on state action

OpenAI is running a parallel but distinct version of the same playbook, endorsing specific state bills in several major states with the explicit goal of creating what its head of global affairs Chris Lehane calls a de facto national framework, essentially getting different states to replicate similar language until it functions like federal law without Congress ever having to act, a strategy he's openly described as reverse federalism

The backdrop makes this more than an abstract policy exercise. Colorado, Texas, California, Utah and Illinois all have broad AI laws already in force or taking effect this year, state attorneys general in several of those states have flagged AI enforcement as a 2026 priority, and industry lobbying group TechNet reports engaging on more than 800 AI related bills across all 50 states with its preferred position prevailing 87 percent of the time. Meanwhile the Trump administration has pushed for federal preemption of state AI laws through executive action, meaning the current patchwork approach, with labs actively influencing which patches get sewn where, may be the operating reality for AI regulation for a while yet

Inside Anthropics State By State Plan To Ratchet Up Ai Rules 00998415www.politico.com