New York Leads Multi-State AI Safety Regulations with RAISE Act

The New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) is collaborating with California and Illinois to establish regulations for the most advanced artificial intelligence systems. The effort is centered around New York’s Responsible AI Safety and Education Act, or the RAISE Act, which was signed on December 22, 2025, and will take effect on January 1, 2027.

Under the RAISE Act, large frontier AI developers must register with NYDFS starting in November 2026. Once the law is active, these companies must adhere to three key obligations: transparency, written safety frameworks, and incident reporting. Developers will need to publicly assess their models’ safety and report serious issues within 72 hours, or 24 hours if a threat is imminent. The rules apply to systems trained with over 10²⁶ compute operations and built by companies earning more than $500 million annually.

Enforcement will be handled by NYDFS’s newly created Office of Digital Innovation, Governance, Integrity and Trust (DIGIT), led by Superintendent Kaitlin Asrow. The office will facilitate information-sharing between states, potentially using existing systems like the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System & Registry (NMLS) to exchange safety records securely.

California and Illinois have also implemented their own AI safety laws. California’s Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act (SB 53) took effect on January 1, 2026, with a 15-day reporting window for incidents. Illinois’s Artificial Intelligence Safety Measures Act, signed on July 6, 2026, will take effect on January 1, 2027, and includes annual third-party audits, unlike the other two states. All three laws aim to mitigate catastrophic risks from advanced AI systems.