When Americans for Responsible Innovation lined up more than 200 state lawmakers against federal AI preemption in June, not one of them was from Florida. Now the group is hiring for all 50 states.
ARI on Sept. 10 launched a state-level advocacy initiative that adds a dozen staffers to work on AI policy in state capitals. The group says the program will focus on frontier AI risks and threats to workers, children, and families. It also says it will counter what it describes as a wave of industry-backed state proposals.
ARI is hiring for two roles this week. More state policy, communications, and operations jobs will follow. The stated goal is a permanent presence in every state capital.
“To succeed in passing the guardrails necessary to sustain AI innovation while protecting the public interest, the state arena can no longer be treated as a secondary front,” said ARI President Brad Carson, a former Oklahoma Congressman and Under Secretary of the Army.
“Industry actors understand this, which is why they are investing heavily and moving fast,” Carson said. “A proactive state operation can help responsible legislators get ahead of industry campaigns, produce durable and constitutionally sound law, and demonstrate that the responsible AI community is a serious player in every arena where the future of AI governance is being decided.”
POLITICO’s Brendan Bordelon reported in May that OpenAI’s plan is to line up big states such as California and New York behind AI safety laws the company can live with, until enough of them mirror each other to amount to a national standard. OpenAI’s Chris Lehane calls it “reverse federalism.”
Florida spent the 2026 Session fighting over an AI Bill of Rights proposed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. The Senate passed it 35-2. The House did not take it up in the Regular Session or the April Special Session. Then-Speaker Daniel Perezpointed to President Donald Trump‘s December executive order on state AI laws and said the federal government should take the lead.
The Computer and Communications Industry Association warned lawmakers on the eve of the Special Session that “a patchwork of state-level requirements creates uncertainty for developers.”
The one AI measure that did become law is SB 484, the data center bill DeSantis signed May 7 in Lakeland. Data centers pay their own utility costs instead of passing them to ratepayers. The Public Service Commission enforces it. Local governments keep their land-use authority. The Legislature’s research arm has until July 2027 to study what the facilities do to the grid.
Data centers are now the AI question in the Governor’s race. Democratic nominee David Jolly says he would impose a one-year statewide moratorium on new construction. Republican nominee Byron Donalds says he would protect ratepayers, limit water use, and keep the facilities away from neighborhoods, WTXL’s Forrest Saunders reported. “What happens when you threaten capital is capital leaves,” Donalds said.
Leading the Future, the super PAC launched by OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman, 8VC founder Joe Lonsdale, and Andreessen Horowitz, put $5 million behind Donalds in February, six months before he won the Republican Primary.
ARI is hiring to catch up with an industry Carson says is investing heavily and moving fast.
