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Article summary
- JB Pritzker signed a groundbreaking bill on Monday to regulate large artificial intelligence developers, adding new reporting requirements for risks posed by the AI models.
- The law establishes a first-in-the-nation requirement for annual independent third-party audits.
- The legislation is based on similar bills from California and New York. Lawmakers estimate that the three states account for about 40% of the U.S. AI market, effectively establishing a national standard in place of federal regulations.
This summary was written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
CHICAGO (AP) — Gov. JB Pritzker signed artificial intelligence legislation modeled after similar bills in California and New York on Monday, furthering the push for a state-led national framework rather than federal regulations.
“Congress and the president should pass similar legislation, but they have been unwilling to do so because many are dependent on special interests that benefit from the lack of regulation in the industry,” Pritzker said before signing the bill. “We can work together to create thoughtful guardrails that benefit both industry and the public, or we can allow a handful of actors to evade responsibility and shift the costs and harms onto ordinary people. Illinois has chosen our path.”
Senate Bill 315, also known as the Artificial Intelligence Safety Measures Act, increases transparency and accountability requirements for the largest artificial intelligence models – those that generate more than $500 million in annual revenue and are trained using massive computing power.
The bill mirrors California’s SB-53 and New York’s Responsible AI Safety and Education Act, each signed into law in late 2025. It sets new reporting standards for the possibility that the AI model could be used for large-scale harm, such as helping users create a chemical, biological or nuclear weapon or commit cyberattacks.
Senate sponsor Sen. Mary Edly-Allen, D-Libertyville, said it is urgent for states to protect themselves from these potential harms.
“We are not prepared to wait for Congress to act,” Edly-Allen said. “There’s an old saying: Give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day. Teach him to fish, he’ll eat for a lifetime. However, teach the AI to fish and it could empty the whole river trying to figure out how to do it.”
Although the three states represent only about 20% of the national population, lawmakers estimate they represent about 40% of the U.S. AI market, effectively creating a national standard.
New guard rails
The new law requires model developers to publish an AI framework that outlines how the developer identifies and assesses a “disaster risk,” defined as the likelihood of incidents that could result in the death or serious injury of more than 50 people or more than $1 million in property damage.
Developers must also report any incidents that could cause harm to the state within 72 hours of the incident being discovered, or within 24 hours if there is an imminent risk of death or serious bodily harm.
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Daniel Didech, D-Buffalo Grove, said the harms the bill will address are not theoretical.
“We’ve already seen the first AI-inspired mass shootings. We’ve already seen AI systems used to attack a municipal water and drainage utility,” Didech said.
He also pointed to the example of Anthropic’s Mythos model, which the company said was too powerful a cyberweapon to release to the public. Anthropic supported the Illinois bill and had representatives present at the signing on Monday.
“Every transformative technology in our history, from automobiles to electricity to air travel, has brought enormous benefits while introducing real risks, and in each case the government has responded, not by banning the technology or taking a reckless stance, but by putting safeguards in place so that ordinary people can have confidence that these technologies are safe,” Didech said.
What’s on the AI horizon?
Companies that violate this will be subject to civil penalties from the Attorney General’s Office of up to $1 million for the first violation and up to $3 million for subsequent violations.
But lawmakers and advocates expect to continue to address AI in the future. For example, Didech identified medical care and education as likely frontiers that require further assessment of AI’s risks to public safety.
Scott Wisor, policy director for Secure AI, was one of the advocates who helped shape the Illinois bill. A stronger external assessment of the risks posed by the models and an assessment of when they are ready for publication would be the next step towards greater transparency and accountability, he said.
“Right now the assessment in this bill is: Are you sticking to your security framework? Because assuming you have a security framework, just like, ‘We’re doing A, B, C and D,’ then you do that, the assessor confirms it, and yet it’s still a risky thing to have out in the world,” Wisor said.
“So this is a big step forward, but I think we can do more,” Wisor said.
The Illinois law goes into effect on January 1, 2028.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets across the state. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
https://capitolnewsillinois.com/news/pritzker-signs-landmark-ai-regulation-bill-that-aims-to-mitigate-risks/
