Gov. Jared Polis, D-Co., recently announced the Colorado General Assembly will open its special legislative session 21 Aug. with "addressing the fiscal and implementation impact" of the Colorado Artificial Intelligence Act. The special session is seen as the last chance to hammer out disagreements over the landmark law before it takes effect 1 Feb. 2026.
Colorado initially passed its law in 2024, becoming the first U.S. state-level legislation to regulate how AI can be used across sectors. It succeeded where similar efforts in California and Connecticut ultimately failed, but Polis enacted the law with stipulations that a task force would be convened to work on improving the bill down the line.
Following recommendations from that working group, a 2025 bill that would have made changes and pushed back the AI Act's implementation date was introduced. However, the bill failed to make it through the legislature this year amid disagreements between the technology and business industries, consumer and labor advocates and lawmakers.
The law passed in a different climate for U.S. AI policy, as the Biden administration was then focused on promoting AI safety measures with some in the industry supportive of guardrails. Colorado state lawmakers will now wrestle with considering legislative changes against a new federal direction. The Trump administration is focused on driving AI innovation while the U.S. Congress is exploring avenues to curb states' work on AI bills.
“When the bill passed two Marches ago, the big criticism was that it was an incredibly business-friendly bill,” Troutman Pepper Locke Partner David Stauss, CIPP/E, CIPP/US, CIPT, FIP, said. “After it passed, almost immediately, the startup tech community, the venture capital community, took the position that the bill was going to hurt innovation.”
According to Stauss, the amendment proposed during the regular 2025 legislative session failed in part because developers and deployers could not agree on who should be responsible for how a model is used once it is released. He anticipated civil society was willing to accept some compromises, such as giving up the right to appeal, easing the duty of care to mitigate algorithmic discrimination and waiving the requirement to notify the attorney general’s office if there is proof of discrimination.
There is also a group of stakeholders that hopes for the bill to disappear altogether given the pro-innovation push. Stauss said it will be hard to tell which faction will win the day.
Where state officials stand
The chief sponsor of Colorado's law, state Senate Majority Leader Robert Rodriguez, D-Colo., is term limited in 2026; Rodriguez told the Colorado Sun he was unsure how the legislators could pass a bill in three days, which is the likely duration of the special session.
Rodriguez signaled agreement with Polis and Attorney General Phil Weiser in a June 2024 joint letter vowing to address some of the concerns with the law and expressing a willingness to delay its enforcement.
In calling for the special session, Polis referred to that agreement and the financial risks the current law could pose to the state, especially with funding cuts by Congress in the reconciliation bill.
“Given the widespread agreement that changes need to be made and the short timeline between the start of session and the implementation date, I am asking the General Assembly to work toward solutions that reduce the fiscal and negative economic impact, and streamline the requirements of SB 205 so that it meets the objectives of consumer protection and anti-discrimination while being simpler and less expensive to implement, and to consider providing additional time for implementation,” he wrote.
Rodriguez and Polis’ office did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for Weiser declined to comment on the AI legislation but referred the IAPP to a speech Weiser made last September calling for an AI approach that protects consumers and promotes innovation.
Ongoing lobbying
The special session will allow a range of stakeholders an earlier opportunity to spar over potential changes they would have otherwise presented when state lawmakers reconvened for 2026 business.
A joint brief to legislators from the Center for Democracy and Technology, Consumer Reports, the Colorado American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, and Towards Justice warned making substantial changes to the law or delaying its implementation would hurt consumers and workers.
“Big Tech and venture capital groups have moved the goalposts during negotiations and demanded the gutting of the law rather than engaging in legitimate give-and-take negotiations, and are currently lobbying Congress to block enforcement of it and any similar laws for the next decade,” the letter charged. “Delaying implementation would reward these tactics.”
But opponents of the current law are not yet aligned on what changes should be made, according to Colorado Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Loren Furman, who served on the state's AI task force.
“This is one of the hardest things we’ve ever worked on, and we’ve represented a lot of businesses and positions over the years,” she said.
Furman indicated the chamber is already aware of several bills introduced to change the law and anticipates more measures to be introduced before the 16 Aug. deadline for session submissions. The chamber is not taking a position on any proposed legislation until lawmakers indicate the likelihood a given bill will be granted a vote. However, the chamber does support an implementation delay to allow for broader consensus.
Furman added that Colorado’s business landscape could be hurt by regulation making it too difficult to use AI. But if a “friendly" bill passes, she said some of those opponents could be satisfied.
“You would have to ask our different members,” she said of what constitutes a "friendly" bill. "This is why it’s so hard — not everyone agrees.”
Caitlin Andrews is a staff writer for the IAPP.
