By Bente Birkeland | Colorado Sun
Business and industry groups have been begging for a delay. They say the law as it stands is unworkable — they’re urging Colorado’s lawmakers to give all sides more time to try to find a compromise.
Nine months: that’s all the time left before companies have to start complying with Colorado’s first-in-the-nation anti-discrimination law for AI systems, unless policymakers act.
Business and industry groups have been begging for a delay. They say the law as it stands is unworkable — they’re urging Colorado’s lawmakers to give all sides more time to try to find a compromise.
But consumer rights advocates say AI’s rapid spread into more and more areas of life makes it critical to put guardrails on how the technology is working. Many advocates for the law also feel some in the tech industry won’t be satisfied with anything other than a full capitulation on the policy’s most meaningful consumer protections.
And after a dramatic end to the legislative session, when the senate majority leader introduced and then pulled what was intended to be a compromise bill, there’s an impasse on how to move forward. Business groups and some universities and schools don’t want to discuss any policy tweaks right now. They want Colorado lawmakers to push back the implementation date first.
The process to revise the law began the moment it was signed, but so far hasn’t panned out
Over the past year, a task force comprised of business and tech, labor, consumer, and privacy experts tried to develop compromise policies around the various elements of the AI law.
The goal was to introduce revisions in the 2025 legislative session. But the session came and went without lawmakers approving anything.
A business-led effort to delay the law’s implementation by roughly a year also failed. Now, Gov. Jared Polis says he backs a federal moratorium on all state AI laws, which would effectively make Colorado’s law moot.