Brianna Titone Looks Back at the Special Session: What Went Wrong

When the gavel came down to close Colorado’s late-August special session last week, the state’s groundbreaking Artificial Intelligence Act had not been repealed or rewritten. But it hadn’t moved forward, either. Instead, lawmakers voted to delay the law’s implementation by nearly five months — from February 1 to June 30 of next year.

For Rep. Brianna Titone, the Democrat from Arvada who has been one of the legislature’s most persistent voices on AI, the outcome was both familiar and deeply frustrating. “I’m okay with what happened, with how the bill ended up,” she told Colorado AI News. “But I couldn’t, in good conscience, put my name on that. I’ve been fighting against just kicking the can down the road for a very long time.”

The special session had been called primarily to address an $800 million budget shortfall. But AI loomed large on the agenda.

Colorado had passed Senate Bill 205 in 2024, the nation’s first comprehensive state AI law, requiring developers and deployers of “high-risk” AI systems to manage risks and disclose impacts. Enforcement was already delayed once, to 2026, amid concerns from businesses and the tech industry. This summer’s session was meant to refine the framework through Senate Bill 4, a compromise Titone and other Democrats hoped could attract broader support.

Instead, it collapsed in a swirl of competing bills, heavy lobbying, and last-minute doubt.

A growing coalition on Sunday

By Titone’s account, momentum was real in the first few days of the session. Venture capital representatives, local AI startups, and even some skeptical industry players were at the table. “We were discussing it, and we were telling them and educating them about what the policy does, how the liability works, how the disclosures work, how we can make that easier for them to comply with,” she recalled. “We were making progress, and we were getting agreement — which we were very excited about, because we didn’t think we would get there.”

That coalition was important. Titone had long argued that the law’s opponents exaggerated its burden on small firms. Senate Bill 4, she said, was deliberately designed as a “light touch” framework, less onerous than SB 205, and one that could be adapted nationally. “I think we need to stop thinking about 205 as what’s going to continue,” she said. “What we were working on with Senate Bill 4 — I wouldn’t be surprised if you see this kind of framework across the country in the next session.”

By the evening of Sunday the 24th, Titone thought she was on the verge of a breakthrough. A draft outline was taking shape. Conversations with venture capitalists, startups, and deployers had been constructive. “We really felt we had a path forward,” she said.

Collapse on Monday

But overnight, the mood shifted. According to Titone, while she and her allies were drafting, others were maneuvering. Lobbyists representing big tech companies – long wary of Colorado’s experiment – swarmed the Capitol. As Titone tells it, they seeded doubt, spread rumors, and pressured stakeholders.

“They created the chaos that they do in the lobby,” she said. “They made rumors. Some people were actually yelling at others. They created the mess for us because we didn’t have a policy written yet that we could even show people — we were still writing. And because of all the doubt they created, it was easy to get people to just lose faith in what we created.”

A rival proposal floated by two colleagues offered a weaker regulatory approach, dividing attention and credibility. “It made it really hard for us to be able to fully focus the conversation on Senate Bill 4,” Titone said. “The big tech companies flooded everything,” she said. “All the pressure that went into it – they all caved in and backed off because they didn’t want to ruin what they had going.”

By late Monday, key stakeholders had walked away.

What others saw

Outside observers saw the same dynamic. The Colorado Sun reported that negotiations briefly appeared promising but fell apart amid disagreements over liability and compliance. Colorado Public Radio noted that some Democrats were frustrated by what they saw as “manufactured chaos” from industry lobbyists. The Colorado Chamber of Commerce and other business groups applauded the delay, calling it necessary breathing room to craft a workable framework.

Ultimately, what looked like a turning point became a dead end. The result was Senate Bill 4’s quiet death, and a five-month extension instead. “We were getting to the point of no return, where we were going to have to extend another day to work it all out and try to do damage control, or just cut bait and just take what we could get as a push off,” Titone said. “But that was not something I was willing to do on principle.”

In the big picture, Titone remains skeptical. “If the tech companies wanted to actually do something, they would have done it,” she argued. “They have unlimited resources. They can do anything. But they didn’t want to. They had no desire to. And I don’t think they’re going to have any desire to do so later.”

Titone’s record of fighting for consumers

Titone’s frustration is sharpened by her past record. She’s no stranger to long odds against powerful corporations.

In 2023, she spearheaded Colorado’s landmark “right-to-repair” law for farm equipment (HB 23-1011), making the state the first in the nation to require companies like John Deere to provide farmers and independent mechanics with the manuals, parts, and software needed to repair modern tractors and combines.

The law, which took effect at the start of 2024, was hailed by farm groups as a money-saver — advocates estimated it would reduce downtime for Colorado farmers by $44 million and cut repair costs by another $17 million annually.

Titone also pushed for wheelchair right-to-repair protections and has tracked efforts to rein in restrictive repair practices in the electronics world. Nationally, Apple has drawn scrutiny for “parts pairing” — software locks that prevent replacement parts from working unless they’re paired by Apple. Advocates argue the practice makes independent repair nearly impossible. In legislative debates, Titone has called out such tactics as examples of how big tech companies tilt the playing field.

“I’ve beaten them before,” she said. “We told big companies what to do, not the other way around. That’s why I know this fight is winnable, even if the deck looks stacked.”

The stakes ahead

Colorado is still the only state with a comprehensive AI law on the books, though several others have considered narrower bills on deepfakes or specific AI risks. Even in Europe, where the EU AI Act set a global precedent, momentum has slowed as leaders like France’s Emmanuel Macron balance regulation with industrial competitiveness.

Titone insists that Colorado still has an opportunity to lead if lawmakers seize it in the 2026 session. But she warns that the window is closing. “The more groups that get gobbled up, that’s going to make it harder to actually accomplish anything,” she said. “Big tech companies are running away with this right now. They don’t want liability. That was the tell.”

She also sees a need for clearer recognition that smaller firms and deployers don’t always share big tech’s interests — even if their lobbyists sometimes claim otherwise. “The Chamber of Commerce was lobbying with the big tech companies, but they also represent a lot of smaller companies that would have benefited from having a shared responsibility,” Titone noted. “To vote against their interest — it’s a conflict of interest. That’s something we really need to think about.”

When there’s a will…

Titone is not naïve about the difficulty ahead. “Sometimes we get it right, and sometimes we have to come back and fix things,” she said. Even with more time, she acknowledges, complex policy like AI regulation will be an uphill battle.

But she also resists the fatalism that the law must inevitably collapse under pressure. “We can do something in a short amount of time,” she insisted. “We’ve done it before. When there’s a will, there’s a way.”

Whether Colorado will muster that will by next June remains an open question. For now, the nation’s pioneering AI law is on ice — not exactly dead, but barely alive. What went wrong, Titone argues, was less about ideas and more about influence. And unless that balance shifts, what comes next may look much the same as what we've just seen.