Part 3 - AI regulation in the US

This is Part 3 of 'Regulation of AI

Back in October 2022, the White House published federal guidance – a Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights identifying five principles aiming to guide the design, use, and deployment of automated systems. It was designed to operate as a roadmap to protect the public from AI harms and was followed in October 2023 by President Biden's Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence (the Biden Order). The Biden Order had set out eight "guiding principles and priorities", detailing how those principles and priorities should be put into effect, and reporting requirements. 

In January 2025, President Trump signed an Executive Order on Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence (the Trump Order). At the same time, President Trump revoked the Biden Order. 

The Trump Order is framed as eliminating unnecessarily burdensome requirements put in place by the Biden Order that hindered the US' ability to innovate. The Trump Order requires US departments and agencies to revise or rescind all policies, directives, regulations, orders and other actions taken under the Biden Order that are "inconsistent with enhancing America's leadership in AI". The Trump Order also calls for the development of an AI action plan within 180 days. 

Federal agencies such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Homeland Security had been tasked with issuing standards and guidance and existing regulatory authorities, to monitor and control the use of AI in ways that will impact AI providers and deployers. In the early part of 2023, NIST released voluntary guidance in the form of the AI Risk Management Framework (AI RMF 1.0), for organisations designing, developing, deploying, or using AI systems. NIST had also published a companion AI RMF Playbook and, in July 2024, released NIST-AI-600-1, Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework: Generative Artificial Intelligence Profile, a companion resource to AI RMF 1.0 in support of the Biden Order. It is unclear to what extent NIST will continue these activities under the Trump Order. It has been reported that many federal organisations such as NIST will be downsized under the Trump administration. 

Prior to the Biden Order, in July 2023 Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI agreed voluntary commitments to move toward safe, secure, and transparent development of AI technology (Apple joined them in July 2024).  These tech companies will not only be facing different regimes globally but within the US they will be dealing with legislation that differs between states.  In California, Assembly Bill 2013 (regarding training data transparency) and Senate Bill 942 (regarding transparency around AI-generated content) have been signed and both come into effect in 2026. In Colorado, Senate Bill 24-205 (regarding consumer protection in interactions with AI) was passed in May 2024. 

Discover more insights on the AI guide