Additional Insights

• Global AI law and policy highlights and takeaways (Article)

Countries worldwide are designing and implementing AI governance legislation and policies commensurate to the velocity and variety of proliferating AI-powered technologies. Efforts include the development of comprehensive legislation, focused legislation for specific use cases, national AI strategies or policies, and voluntary guidelines and standards. There is no standard approach toward bringing AI under state regulation, however, common patterns toward reaching the goal of AI regulation can be observed. Given the transformative nature of AI technology, the challenge for jurisdictions is to find a balance between innovation and regulation of risks. Therefore, governance of AI often, if not always, begins with a jurisdiction rolling out a national strategy or ethics policy instead of legislating from the get-go.

This pattern is evident throughout this tracker. The tracker identifies legislative or policy developments or both in a subset of jurisdictions. Such initiatives are either already being deliberated at the country level or are in the process of commencing deliberations in countries across six continents, speaking to the global importance of AI. However, given the rapid and widespread policymaking in this space, the tracker does not include all AI initiatives within every jurisdiction across every continent. This tracker also offers brief commentary on the broader AI context and related developments and identifies laws or policies in parallel professions like privacy.

This pattern is evident throughout this tracker, which is compiled into a chart, map and directory with information specific to covered jurisdictions.

In February 2026, the IAPP published this article providing highlights and takeaways from the latest comprehensive update to this tracker.

Tracking, unpacking and governing the complex field of global AI governance law and policy has quickly become a top-tier strategic issue for organizations. The IAPP AI Governance Center will continue to provide AI governance professionals with the content, resources, networking, training and certification needed to respond to the field's complex risks. The IAPP AI Global Law and Policy Tracker has been updated with valuable input from the global community of AI governance professionals, and we continue to welcome feedback and insights from this community. If you are aware of relevant information absent from the tracker, please share it with us at research@iapp.org.

The IAPP additionally hosts a Global Privacy Law and DPA Directory, which identifies global data protection authorities and privacy legislation, and a US State AI Governance Legislation Tracker, which focuses on cross-sectoral state AI governance bills that apply to private sector organizations.