OpenAI has been quietly endorsing a growing list of federal and state technology bills, positioning itself as a cooperative actor in a regulatory environment that most of its peers are still treating as an adversarial one.
What OpenAI is actually backing
On May 13, 2026, OpenAI backed the Kids Online Safety Act, known as KOSA, which pushes for AI-specific protections for minors online. The bill has bipartisan support.
Then on June 24, 2026, OpenAI endorsed the DEFIANCE Act, a piece of legislation aimed at giving civil legal recourse to victims of nonconsensual deepfakes. If someone uses AI to create explicit images of you without your consent, this bill would let you sue them.
At the state level, OpenAI’s public policy agenda from June 3, 2026 lists California’s SB 53, New York’s RAISE Act, and Illinois SB 315 as models worth following. Illinois SB 315 is particularly notable. It passed and now requires AI developers generating more than $500M in annual revenue to publish safety frameworks and accept accountability for incidents tied to their systems.
