“The current patchwork of state-level AI rules has shifted from a background nuisance to a structural drag on execution,” said Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst and CEO at Greyhound Research. “Enterprises building nationwide AI services now operate inside a maze where the same model can be considered high risk in one state, lightly constrained in another, and entirely unregulated at the federal level.”
Teams spend increasing time producing impact assessments, audit trails, and contract variants for different jurisdictions—costs felt most acutely by IT services providers embedding these constraints in multi-tenant platforms. Compounding the problem, a compliant model today may require redesign next quarter as new state mandates land.
The ‘woke AI’ trigger
Trump also pointed to ideological concerns as a driver for federal action. “Some States are even trying to embed DEI ideology into AI models, producing ‘Woke AI’ (Remember Black George Washington?),” he wrote, adding that federal standards could “protect children AND prevent censorship.”
