May Day! May Day! This is Not the AI Bill You Were Looking For

Colorado is once again at the forefront of AI regulation – and our state's Senate Bill 25-318, the latest attempt to refine and enact consumer protections around artificial intelligence, arrives with both promise and peril.

Let’s start with the good news. The bill represents a meaningful step forward in the state’s effort to ensure AI systems treat people fairly. It shores up protections against algorithmic discrimination in high-stakes decisions—things like housing, credit, education, and employment. It rightly demands that consumers be informed when AI is playing a significant role in decisions that affect their lives. And importantly, it offers relief to small companies, exempting them from the bill’s most demanding requirements.

These are smart moves. AI innovation doesn’t just come from tech giants – it’s bubbling up from startups across the country. Carving out protections for startups and small firms is not just a kindness; it’s a strategic choice that preserves the space for experimentation while setting a clear bar for larger, more consequential systems.

So why the distress call in the headline?

Because the bill, as currently written, includes a provision to further delay enforcement until January 1, 2027 – a full 19 months from now, and nearly a year after the original February 1, 2026 effective date. And in the world of AI, 19 months is a lifetime.

Just consider all that’s happened in the last 19 months, or starting from way back in October 2023: OpenAI's board flipped. The European Union passed the EU AI Act. ChatGPT went from version 3.5 to GPT-4 to GPT-4o. And startups scaled from seed funding to global influence. The AI landscape is changing incredibly fast – and Colorado can’t afford to fall behind.

Colorado consumers and citizens shouldn’t have to wait another year and a half for protections that the legislature already agrees are necessary. Nor should AI startups that want to build ethical, trustworthy products have to operate in regulatory limbo that long. The old saying “justice delayed is justice denied” feels tailor-made for this moment. Or perhaps we should update it: Protection delayed is protection denied. For both citizens and companies.

This delay benefits no one – except perhaps those hoping to avoid accountability.

While some in the business community worry about compliance burdens, SB 25-318 expands already reasonable exemptions and phased obligations for small firms. For example, it now initially exempts companies with fewer than 500(!) full-time employees worldwide and allows for staggered implementation based on a business’s size and the number of decisions made by high-risk AI systems.

Additionally, after months of testimony and deliberation, Colorado’s AI Task Force produced a roadmap that was cautious, inclusive, and far from heavy-handed.

Rather than gutting those protections or kicking the can down the road, the legislature should seize this moment to show that responsible innovation and consumer rights are not mutually exclusive.

This may not be the bill anyone was dreaming of – and welcome to the sausage factory of policymaking. (It ain’t pretty). And if both industry and consumer advocates are grumbling about it, there’s a good chance it landed in the right spot.

So, in the big picture, passing this bill – and implementing it ASAP – would be far better than doing nothing. It builds on the bold foundation Colorado laid last year. It protects small businesses. It gives citizens visibility into the black box of AI. It’s a step toward accountability in an age of automation.

The Colorado legislature should pass this bill – but it must resist the urge to delay it further. The future is arriving faster than we can even imagine. Just as Coloradans deserve guardrails in an age of algorithmic decision-making, Colorado’s AI startups and innovators deserve regulatory clarity now – not in 2027, or 2028, or after a dozen other states have stepped in to lead where we hesitated.

The framework is there. The will is there. All that’s missing now is the courage to move – without delay.