On March 20, 2026, the White House announced a comprehensive national legislative framework (the “Framework”) that tracks with its December 2025 AI Preemption Executive Order and its July 2025 AI Action Plan and takes aim at hot-button AI policy topics such as child safety and privacy, AI training and copyright, liability protections and preemption of state laws that the Trump administration believes are necessary to maintain America’s leadership in AI innovation. The Administration set an ambitious deadline, calling on Congress to turn this policy blueprint into law by year’s end (some administration advisors are cautiously optimistic that a bipartisan solution based on the Framework is within reach). At the same time, Senator Marsha Blackburn released a 291-page discussion draft for national AI legislation, or “one federal rulebook for AI,” that would generally codify White House policy, but also diverges in several important ways.
At this juncture – with doubts about whether Congress can form a consensus around AI regulation even as state legislatures step up to fill the void – developers and deployers are left to watch and wait. For now, a patchwork of state AI laws remains, covering everything from child protection, health and safety, transparency measures, and automated decisionmaking.
