Public Comment

Colorado passed the first comprehensive state AI law in 2024, focused on high-risk AI systems used in consequential decisions. In 2026, the Legislature passed SB 26-189, which significantly narrowed obligations and delayed the effective date; the amended law focuses more on automated decision-making that materially affects major employment decisions. The debate is whether Colorado should lead with broad consumer protections, narrower employment protections, business flexibility, or a delayed approach while federal and other state rules develop. Colorado should not write AI rules so broad that nobody can comply, but people deserve notice and review when software helps decide their job prospects.

What should Colorado protect first as it rewrites its AI law?

Overall results

1
55% support · excluded by 2%
7

Employment is a concrete place to start because applicants can be harmed by opaque screening tools.

7

A narrower law is more likely to be followed than a sweeping law small employers cannot understand.

2
52% support · excluded by 6%
7

Notice and human review give people a path to challenge bad automated decisions without banning the tools.

7

Records matter because enforcement is impossible if companies cannot show what the tool did.

3
48% support · excluded by 6%
7

A patchwork of state AI rules could bury useful software in paperwork before anyone knows which risks are real.

4
44% support · excluded by 12%
7

If AI can affect housing, credit, health care, and education, protections should not stop at employment.

About the author