New Article from Our Research Team on U.S. AI Policy and Law

Wood blocks with AI and the scales of justice

We are pleased to announce that the article “The Tangled Path to Success: The U.S. AI Policy and Legal Frameworks,” authored by members of the Business AI Ethics Initiative team, was published on December 2, 2025, in Latvia’s largest legal journal Jurista Vārds.

The article was inspired by our observations on how European discussions of U.S. AI policy and regulation are often shaped by misconceptions or an incomplete understanding of the complex nuances of the U.S. legal and political tradition. As the Business AI Ethics Initiative team has closely followed AI policy and regulatory developments not only in the United States (see our recent analysis of America’s AI Action Plan and its impact on businesses) but also in other jurisdictions, we felt well-positioned to provide concise and accurate insights into the evolving U.S. AI policy and legal landscape.

The purpose of the article is to offer non-U.S. audiences a concentrated overview of U.S. AI policy and regulatory frameworks, including the historical foundations of technology regulation and the current federal and state-level approaches to AI governance. The article is structured into three sections:

  1. An overview of the U.S. e-commerce regulatory approach, often cited as a success story and potential model for AI regulation.
  2. A historical review of federal AI policies, tracing their development since 2019, their evolution across presidential administrations, and their culmination in the U.S. AI Action Plan and its three accompanying executive orders.
  3. An overview of the state-level AI regulatory landscape, highlighting several notable laws adopted in recent years. These examples illustrate how states are defining obligations for AI developers and deployers across a range of sectors, while also revealing a fragmented and increasingly complex regulatory environment. 

This year, there have been multiple federal-level efforts aimed at advancing deregulation – both federally and at the state level. Our article examines the tensions driving these initiatives. At the time of writing, apart from references in the AI Action Plan, no specific deregulation measures had been formally introduced. However, shortly after the journal’s layout went to print in late November, indications emerged that a new executive order might grant the federal government unilateral authority over AI regulation.  These signals were confirmed on December 8, 2025, when President Trump announced that he would sign an executive order establishing a single national AI regulatory framework later in the week. This executive order, titled Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence, was signed on December 11, 2025, and seeks to promote what the administration describes as a “minimally burdensome national policy framework for AI.” It does so by authorizing federal review of existing State AI laws, conditioning certain categories of federal funding on state compliance, and establishing uniform federal reporting and disclosure requirements. Further, it directs the Special Advisor for AI and Crypto and the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology to develop uniform federal AI regulation that would preempt state AI laws inconsistent with the order’s policy objectives. Though these latest developments are not covered in our article, we believe the piece provides a solid basis for understanding and tracing such policy shifts.

The article was originally written in English and later translated and published in Latvian. If you are interested in reading the English version, you can download it here.

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  • Jeffrey Saviano: Business AI Ethics Initiative Leader; Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics, Harvard University | jeffreysaviano@fas.harvard.edu
  • Jonathan Hack: Director of Content & Strategy; Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics, Harvard University | jhack@fas.harvard.edu
  • Vija Kalnina, PhD; Business AI Ethics Initiative Lead Researcher
  • Lily Noyes; Business AI Ethics Initiative Research Assistant
  • Ryan Wettre; Business AI Ethics Initiative Research Assistant 

The Business AI Ethics research team is part of the Edmond & Lily Safra Center’s ongoing effort to promote the application of ethics in practice. Their research assists business leaders in examining the promise and challenges of AI technologies through an ethical lens. Views expressed in these posts are those of the author(s) and do not imply endorsement by ELSCE.