Halfway Through 2026: State Technology Policy Comes of Age

This week, legislators and advocates across the U.S. will attend the National Conference of State Legislature’s (NCSL) annual conference, where they will review the first half of the 2026 legislative sessions. 2026 reinforces a trend that has been building for several years: state legislatures continue to shape the future of technology policy in the United States. In the absence of comprehensive federal legislation, lawmakers across the country are increasingly taking the lead on issues ranging from artificial intelligence and privacy to children’s online safety and digital competition.

The volume of legislative activity remained striking. State legislatures have introduced well over 2,000 technology-related bills during the 2026 legislative cycle, and according to the NCSL, more than 1,300 of those addressed Artificial Intelligence, covering applications from healthcare and employment to elections, consumer transparency, digital replicas, and companion chatbots.

The increase in technology bills was only part of the story. In 2026, state legislatures also took a more sophisticated approach to technology policy. Rather than advancing broad proposals meant to regulate entire sectors, lawmakers are crafting legislation that targets specific technologies, business practices, and perceived harms. Across nearly every technology policy issue, state legislatures are moving from broad concepts toward more tailored regulatory approaches.

Artificial Intelligence Policy Becomes More Targeted

While comprehensive AI governance proposals continued to emerge, much of this year’s activity reflected a more nuanced understanding of how AI is deployed across the economy. Rather than regulating artificial intelligence as a single technology, lawmakers increasingly focused on specific use cases, industries, and risks. States considered measures addressing AI-generated content disclosures, synthetic media, chatbots, automated decision-making, and transparency obligations for developers and deployers of AI systems.

As AI technologies continue to evolve, so too does the legislative response. The result is a growing body of state legislation that is becoming increasingly specialized rather than broadly prescriptive.

Privacy Laws Continue to Expand and Evolve

The International Association of Privacy Professionals has remarked that privacy remained one of the busiest areas of state technology policy. Several states enacted new comprehensive consumer privacy laws, continuing the steady expansion of state privacy frameworks. Meanwhile, states with existing privacy statutes kept revisiting and refining those laws — considering amendments on children’s privacy, sensitive personal information, biometric data, automated decision-making, data brokers, and enforcement.

Taken together, these developments show that state privacy legislation is evolving beyond the adoption of new comprehensive laws. States are not only expanding privacy protections to new jurisdictions but also refining existing frameworks, Connecticut, for instance, continues to tweak its privacy law, to address emerging technologies and evolving policy priorities. In the absence of a federal privacy framework, businesses continue to navigate an increasingly complex patchwork of state requirements.

Online Safety Policy Diversifies

Protecting children online remained a top priority for state lawmakers but unlike earlier years, however, no single legislative approach dominated the debate.

Instead, lawmakers pursued a wide variety of proposals, including age assurance requirements, app store regulation, parental controls, social media restrictions, age-appropriate design requirements, safeguards for AI companion chatbots, protections against exploitative platform design, and measures addressing AI-generated intimate imagery.

Although these proposals share the common objective of improving online safety, they reflect very different policy approaches and raise distinct questions regarding privacy, constitutional protections, implementation, and technological feasibility. The breadth of proposals considered this year illustrates that online safety has become one of the most dynamic and diverse areas of state technology policymaking.

Competition Policy Broadens Beyond Traditional Antitrust

Competition policy also continued to evolve throughout the first half of 2026. As lawmakers focused on the operation of digital markets rather than traditional antitrust enforcement.¹

States considered legislation affecting platform neutrality, algorithmic pricing, interoperability, self-preferencing, data portability, digital advertising, and marketplace access. Rather than relying exclusively on existing competition laws, many proposals sought to establish new rules governing digital platforms and online marketplaces.

This continued evolution reflects a broader shift toward sector-specific regulation of the digital economy as lawmakers explore new approaches to promoting competition in rapidly changing technology markets.

The State Compliance Concerns Continue to Grow

While many technology proposals pursue similar policy objectives, they frequently differ in scope, terminology, compliance obligations, and enforcement mechanisms. Lawmakers also continue to borrow ideas from one another, with legislative concepts spreading rapidly across state lines and evolving as they are adapted to local priorities.

For companies operating nationally, the result is an increasingly complex and dynamic regulatory landscape. As states refine existing laws while developing new approaches to emerging technologies, understanding the evolving patchwork of state legislation has become more important than ever.

Looking Ahead

Although many legislatures have adjourned for the year, state technology policymaking is far from finished. Regulators are implementing recently enacted laws, and many proposals introduced in 2026 are likely to return in future sessions.

If there is one takeaway from the first half of 2026, it is that state technology policy is maturing. The conversation is no longer centered on whether to regulate emerging technologies, but on how to do so effectively. As lawmakers continue refining existing laws and developing increasingly specialized proposals, the state legislative landscape will remain one of the most important indicators of where technology policy is headed next.

1. California is the exception to the rule, with the Compete Act (AB 1776) poised to significantly reshape California’s state competition laws if it is signed into law.