✍️By Tasneem Ahmed.
Tasneem is an Undergraduate Student in Political Science and a Research Assistant at the Governance and Responsible AI Lab (GRAIL), Purdue University.
📌 Editor’s Note: This article is part of our AI Policy Corner series, a collaboration between the Montreal AI Ethics Institute (MAIEI) and the Governance and Responsible AI Lab (GRAIL) at Purdue University. The series provides concise insights into critical AI policy developments from the local to international levels, helping our readers stay informed about the evolving landscape of AI governance. This piece spotlights the December 11 Executive Order: Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence, which aims to create a standardized national AI policy in the future.
On January 13, 2026, Missouri’s governor signed new legislation, requiring the regulation of AI within the private and public sectors. Missouri is not the first to do this, with Texas, Illinois, and Colorado passing recent legislation that drastically addresses AI governance. With this rapid increase in state AI policies, the executive branch has decided to address these regulations with the executive order, “Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence.” This executive order prioritizes establishing a cohesive AI strategy that ensures states have similar and non-conflicting policies by utilizing multiple strategies.
Strategy 1: Artificial Intelligence Litigation Task Force
The Executive Order requires the Attorney General to create an AI Litigation Task Force that would address state AI policies that are not compatible with an unoppressive national AI policy. Examples of these types of policies include those that regulate interstate commerce or that can be preempted by federal policies. The task force will also work with the Special Advisor for AI and Crypto, the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, and the Assistant to the President and Counsel to the President, in order to decide which state policies need to be challenged.
Strategy 2: State AI Laws Evaluation
The Executive Order also calls for the members of the Task Force and the Secretary of Commerce to create a list of state AI policies that are found to conflict with the national AI policy by March. The Executive Order highlights state laws that require disclosure from deployers and require modifications of model outputs. The Executive Order mentions Colorado’s Artificial Intelligence Act as a potential violator of these policies due to its ban on algorithmic discrimination. Other policies that align with the national AI policy can also be identified within their evaluation.
Strategy 3: State Funding Restrictions
In order to ensure state compliance, task force evaluations will be used to inform the public of ways for states to be eligible for the Broadband Equity Access and Development Program funding. This includes information on AI laws that are ineligible for funding, the dangers of inconsistent AI policies across different states, and the connection between state AI policies and high-speed networks. Additional funding can be provided by executive departments and agencies to states that do not create AI policies conflicting with the national AI policy, or that agree not to enforce these types of policies while they receive funding.
Strategy 4: State AI Laws Preemption
The Executive Order also targets certain state AI policies by requiring the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and the Special Advisor for AI and Crypto to explain how policies that require alterations to AI outputs are preempted by the Federal Trade Commission Act’s prohibition on unfair and deceptive acts or practices. The Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and the Special Advisor for AI and Crypto will also decide whether to create a reporting standard for AI models to preempt state laws.
Strategy 5: Federal AI Policy Framework
In order to establish a federal AI policy, the Executive Order requires the Special Advisor for AI and Crypto and the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology to work together to draft a federal AI policy framework. The framework will prioritize preempting state AI laws that conflict with the national AI policy, while not proposing preemption of laws addressing child safety protections, AI compute and data center infrastructure, and government procurement and use of AI.
This Executive Order is a critical policy to watch the implementation of, as it could drastically change the development of state AI laws in the United States. While it is still too early, there will soon be effects of the Executive Order within different state policies that could shift the regulation of AI in the United States.
Further Reading:
- When Should Congress Preempt State AI Law?
- Timeline of Trump White House Actions and Statements on Artificial Intelligence
- U.S. AI Law Tracker
Photo credit: A springtime view of the Capitol building | By Sara L. Cottle on Unsplash