Educational officials, business leaders and technology groups said they are relieved that new state laws regulating artificial intelligence are months behind, but have remained unhappy that many of their broader concerns remained resolved.
Last year, Gov. Jared Police signed the country’s first law regulating “high-risk” artificial intelligence systems. While he signs the measure, he issued a rare signature statement to the Colorado General Assembly, warning that it will tamper with Colorado’s innovations and hinder the state’s ability to completely stop the state’s new technology from reaching its full potential here.
The law, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Robert Rodriguez’s D-DENVER, and D-Arvada’s Brianna Titone and D-Commerce City’s Manny Rutinel, established standards and requirements for AI developers and dispatchers to reduce “algorithm discrimination” and increase transparency. The process that applies to a process also known under the new law as “algorithmic bias” applies to processes in which calculations create “an unfair different treatment or effects of denouncement of people based on race, color, gender, religion, age, national, disability, disability, genetic information, or other classifications protected by the law.”
In his signature statement, Police thanked the bill sponsors for launching a conversation about “algorithm discrimination,” but emphasized that the policy could create a “complex compliance regime” for Colorado AI developers and “deployers.”
“I appreciate the interest of our sponsors in preventing discrimination and prioritizing consumer protection as Colorado leads in this area. I would recommend that we improve this significantly before it becomes effective,” he writes.
Rodriguez and Titone later created a task force. The task force has established a task force that includes two lawmakers and representatives from organizations and agencies such as the ACLU, the state Attorney General’s Office, and the Colorado Chamber of Commerce. The task force took part in the 2025 legislative meeting across the interim. The goal was to secure an agreement on changes before the bill came into effect in February 2026, the original timeline.
Some of these changes are outlined in the original version of Senate Bill 004, introduced in this month’s special by Rep. Rodriguez and Jennifer Bacon’s D-DENVER. The bill originally sought to rewrite the 2024 legislation, but according to Rodriguez, the parties ultimately failed to agree exactly how it should be rewritten.
This is a second attempt to reach a transaction and a second failure by the parties.
“It’s become impossible to go on the path to working for everyone,” Rodriguez told a colleague on the Senate floor. “I think this is a path forward to building on the progress we’ve made.”
Rodriguez then amended the bill and removed all but one provision. This pushed back the implementation of the law from February 2026 to June 30th.
Education, technology and business groups have largely welcomed the delay and are currently planning to work with sponsors during the 2026 legislative meeting to secure contracts.
Technically, policymakers and other parties will lift changes to the AI
In fact, it is not uncommon for policymakers to have already reached agreement before the legislative meeting.
“We are grateful for Senator Rodriguez’s decision to delay implementation of SB24-205,” said Brittany Morris Sanders, president and CEO of the Colorado Technology Association. “This decision recognizes the complexity of artificial intelligence and the importance of building a framework that protects consumers, supports businesses and provides clarity to policymakers.”
She added: “By expanding our timeline, we have the opportunity to work collaboratively on practical solutions that will strengthen consumer trust, protect our jobs, and keep Colorado competitive. The CTA and our members are committed to being an active partner in this process to ensure Colorado leads both innovation and responsibility.”
Educators agree with the concept of AI law, but “want to understand things a little better.”
Colorado Education Association President Kevin Vick said, like other new technologies, AI is a double-rimmed sword.
According to Vic, his organization agreed to its intent, but the timeline was inadequate, and the union took a “surveillance” position in the 2024 law.
“It’s a very new technology, it’s progressing so quickly and it’s been used in many ways, so it’s pretty likely to be unintended harm because we don’t know if we really know it in society yet,” he said. “We agree with the idea that when AI is used to make such decisions in employment, admissions, or other life-changing decisions, individuals have a right to know about it. We agree with that concept, but I think our hesitation would like to learn more and understand things a little more.”
Schools across Colorado use artificial intelligence systems for employment and admission, Vick said. The technology is particularly useful for sorting large amounts of data, but its filtration process can “make individuals, application processes and employment systems discriminatory or harmful,” he added.
For now, Vic said a four-month implementation delay was “probably appropriate.”
“I think it’s a good balance point between people who say they need more time and people who say we can’t wait,” he said. “Latening a further four months makes people vulnerable for another four months, but it should give them plenty of time to implement this effectively.”
Rachel Beck, executive director of the Colorado Chamber of Commerce, said that members know that AI regulations are inevitable and willing to follow, but she said she spoke of many shared police concerns about the possibility of the original bill to curb innovation in the fast-growing industry.
“I think our companies are aware that innovation is coming in this sector and they generally believe that it is necessary,” she said. “But we are trying to make sure our systems don’t do any harm, so we also need to innovate in more efficient ways and make sure we don’t limit what humans can’t.”
Leslie Oliver, vice president of foreign affairs at the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, agreed.
“Our policies and regulations are so broad and unpredictable, we don’t even want to consider leaving Colorado or even leave Colorado to make it affordable to do Colorado here.
In July, the White House released the “AI Action Plan.” This called for AI deregulation and removal of references to diversity, equity and inclusion, but did not specifically mention “algorithm identification.”
Beck said businesses have three major legal concerns. Its broad scope, ambiguous definitions, and unclear liability, the latter of which is a general issue of AI law.
Because most companies use open source AI systems, they are publicly available to customize and modify others to suit their needs, so there is a risk of developers being criticized in examples of algorithm identification caused by changes made by “decommissioners.”
Conversely, deployers will blame what they encode into the framework of the system that developers don’t know about.
“Developers don’t want to be responsible for customizations that customers do that they don’t have control,” Beck said. “Deployers cannot visualize the framework and code that developers used to set up the systems they purchased. I think both of these perspectives are completely legal and are a big part of the conversation around AI policy.”
Beck said during the 2026 legislative meeting he hopes stakeholders and lawmakers will work to address the ambiguity of the bill. The original task force has completed the work, but she believes it will be beneficial to obtain the bill where the second task force must be ahead of the implementation date.
Beck said the chamber was also pleased that Rodriguez has decided to delay implementation of Senate Bill 205, acknowledging that while there is still much more to do, it is not uncommon for complex subjects to employ multiple sessions.
“It took three years to resolve data privacy regulations, so I don’t think it’s surprising that most of us are trying to understand it when we’re working on this complexity and this important and important to the economy,” she said.
