The truncated special session that begins Thursday will feature discussion of one of the most complex topics in recent legislative history — precedent-setting artificial-intelligence regulation — and a choice between two bills that approach the topic in very different ways.
Both bills seek to make changes to a 2024 law that represented the country’s most comprehensive AI regulatory effort — but that tech-industry leaders have called “literally untenable.” The law, which Gov. Jared Polis signed with the caveat that he was putting together a task force to try to fix it immediately, is set to go into effect in February, and state leaders don’t want to wait until the Jan. 14 start of the 2026 regular session to rewrite it.
One of the proposals comes from Senate Majority Leader Robert Rodriguez and fellow Democratic Rep. Brianna Titone, authors of the 2024 law, and seeks to broaden the definition of systems governed by the law and require disclosure of people’s personal characteristics that led to an AI-generated consequential decision. While backers say it streamlines regulation and provides consumer protections, opponents say it makes compliance more difficult than current law and will force companies out of Colorado.
The other comes from a trio of moderate Democrats and a pragmatic Republican and removes many of the disclosure provisions from current law that its sponsors say will require employers to hire entire compliance staffs just to continue operating. It requires developer and deployer disclosures on consequential decisions, as current law does, but it limits the filing of lawsuits by consumers and delays enactment of the law until 2027.
“A big fight”
Legislators are expected to be in special session for no more than a week — if that long — and to focus a lot of their energy on reducing tax breaks and cutting spending in order to close a $783 million budget shortfall. But the debate over AI regulation, which Polis added to his special-session call as an outlier to the financially focused session, may require more time and thought than any other bill — without guarantee of a resolution.
“I’m expecting a big fight,” Titone said in an interview. “Fundamentally it comes down to: What does our bill do and what does the other bill do? The other bill doesn’t do a whole lot of anything.”

Colorado state Rep. Brianna Titone pushes back in May against a bill that sought to extend the date to implement new artificial-intelligence regulations.
Responded Sen. Liza Frizell, the Castle Rock Republican who is a sponsor of the bipartisan bill: “The chief difference is (our) bill can actually be implemented by business, while the other bill is a business killer.”
The roiling debate goes back to the 2024 regular session, when legislators passed Senate Bill 24-205. That bill sought to keep AI programs dealing with issues ranging from hiring to medical decisions from discriminating against people — a goal sponsors sought to achieve by requiring greater transparency around the creation and use of such programs.
Specifically, the law requires developers to disclose detailed information about AI systems to deployers, provide documentation assessing discrimination risks, publish a statement summarizing the risk management of systems and inform the Colorado Attorney General’s office of any discovery of significant risk of discrimination. It requires deployers of high-risk AI to implement comprehensive risk-management policies, conduct annual reviews to prevent algorithmic discrimination, notify consumers when AI is making consequential decisions and offer appeals processes to affected consumers.
Reservations abound over existing AI law
Tech leaders warned that disclosure requirements and the requirement to allow appeals of any adverse decision were so onerous as to be infeasible to smaller companies and that such a burden would push all companies to move system development to other states. Within months, they said, they were hearing from investors who said they wouldn’t fund companies in the booming industry in Colorado when they could work in states with fewer regulations, hurting both existing firms and start-ups considering the Centennial State.
Polis, who signed the bill “with reservations,” put together a task force to suggest fixes, and business leaders on it requested repeal of the appeals process, addition of an opportunity to cure and a narrowing what constituted substantial factors in high-risk decisions. But they could not reach a consensus with Rodriguez or with consumer and labor advocates, and two attempts to reform the law at the very end of the 2025 regular session failed.

Colorado Senate Majority Leader Robert Rodriguez speaks about his AI bill on the Senate floor in 2024.
With federal leaders from both parties calling on states to step back from the development of patchwork laws and leave regulation to Congress, Colorado enters this special legislative session at a crossroads. If nothing is done and industry leaders enter January not knowing if anything can be fixed by Feb. 1, some could halt research and development or expansion into Colorado until the regulatory picture is clear, said Tyler Thompson, a partner in the emerging technology group at Reed Smith LLP.
Two GOP legislators have bills to address the issue — one from Sen. Mark Baisley to repeal SB 205 and declare AI developers must follow antidiscrimination law, and one from Rep. Ron Weinberg delaying implementation and exempting smaller employers. But with Democrats controlling heavy majorities in both legislative chambers, neither are expected to garner much support.
What is in the two main AI bills
That likely puts Rodriguez’s follow-up bill on a collision course with the other bill, which has been developed in large part by Democratic Rep. William Lindstedt of Broomfield. The outcome could impact both development of the AI industry and consumer protections.
The two bills have some similarities. Both would dump the cumbersome consumer appeals process. Both require developers and deployers to notify consumers when they are interacting with AI systems rather than humans. And both add even more disclosure requirements when AI systems make high-risk decisions about employment opportunities, education enrollment, lending or health-care decisions, housing, insurance, legal services or essential government services.
But there also are significant differences that are leading to the intense rhetoric from legislators and interest groups that is building around the bills.
Rodriguez’s bill keeps the effective date on Feb. 1, while Lindstedt’s bill moves it back to January 2027. Some tech-industry leaders say that February seems too soon to make rules around all the changes being proposed and have suggested that an Aug. 2 effective date, coinciding with AI rules being put in place by the European Union, is more reasonable.
While neither bill creates a new private right of action, Rodriguez’s bill continues to allow the filing of private lawsuits arguing that developers or deployers of AI systems run afoul of the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act or Colorado Consumer Protection Act — the same remedy available for other alleged CADA or CCPA violations. Lindstedt’s bill, however, declares that the Colorado Attorney General’s office has exclusive authority to enforce the law, which blocks private legal actions brought over violations committed by AI systems, argued Nina DiSalvo, policy director for the Towards Justice law firm.

Towards Justice Policy Director Nina DiSalvo speaks during a public hearing on the state’s family-leave insurance plan in 2023.
Definitions and disclosures
While Lindstedt’s bill synchronizes the definition of “artificial intelligence system” with federal law — a choice that would make it easier for national companies to comply with laws across state lines, Frizell said — Rodriguez’s bill broadens the definition in SB 205. It says an “algorithmic decision system” is any machine-based system or computational process that uses statistical modeling, data analytics, AI or machine learning to generate a simplified output — including scores, classifications or recommendations — or is capable for a given set of human-defined objectives of making predictions or recommendations.
The biggest difference between the proposals, however, is in the specific disclosures they require to consumers impacted by high-risk decisions made substantially by AI — before the interaction occurs. Both require deployers of those programs to provide the name and contact information of the AI system developers and the trade name of the system, but Rodriguez’s bill also requires disclosure of the nature of the decision and the state in the decision-making process during which the algorithmic system will be used.
Then, within 30 days of a decision, Rodriguez’s bill would require deployers to provide affected individuals with a list of types, categories and sources of personal characteristics associated with them that were collected, analyzed or predicted by the AI system. And they must provide the 20 personal characteristics of the individual that most substantially influenced the output of the algorithmic decision system — and allow affected individuals to challenge and correct any inaccurate data.
Is business at risk?
This data-focused approach is needed to understand the input that has led to the algorithmic decision without requiring developers to disclose the details of the algorithm, which they’ve defended as proprietary information, Titone said. If people don’t have the ability to correct wrongly gathered data, AI systems can continue to make life-altering decisions that can affect a huge range of individuals — a potential mistake that requires that people should be able to file legal actions to stop it, the Arvada Democrat said.
“I absolutely think there’s more to be done to protect all of us from these technologies. This is a very basic level of protection,” DiSalvo said. “It represents extraordinary compromise with the business community … I think it’s a very, very small step but that it would provide at least a modicum of protection.”
Frizell, who is cosponsoring the Lindstedt bill with Boulder Democratic Sen. Judy Amabile in her chamber, couldn’t disagree more.

Sen. Lisa Frizell speaks at a Capitol news conference in May 2024 announcing a property-tax-cut bill that later passed the Legislature and became law.
The disclosure retirements are so broad that some small employers and local governments are worried that they will have to shift resources to creating staffs dedicated solely to conveying information to people impacted by decisions of programs they use, she said. That’s why a provision in her bill would hold harmless school districts and other public agencies that use AI programs and comply with CADA and CCPA provisions.
Tech leaders also say the disclosure requirement is largely impossible for deployers to comply with, as they don’t have access to the 20 leading personal characteristics that developers programmed systems to base decisions upon. That opens them to significant liability, which could make companies skittish of working in Colorado, officials say.
Tech and business leaders hoping for compromise
“I personally would prefer that Colorado wait and does nothing until the federal government comes up with one policy for all states. But sometimes you have to look at the cards that are on the table,” Frizell said of why she got onto an otherwise Democratic bill. “And the cards that are on the table are that Rodriguez is trying to modify his bill and make it worse. Our businesses can’t sustain that kind of policy in Colorado.”
Colorado Technology Association President/CEO Brittany Morris Saunders said she continues to work with legislators to ensure one policy comes out of this special session that cleans up current law and keeps the state competitive for tech-industry growth. Colorado Chamber of Commerce President/CEO Loren Furman, meanwhile, emphasized that both bills need to minimize the legal exposure for companies developing products and selling into Colorado — and should offer safe harbor for following the complex new rules.
“We’re still the only state that has adopted an AI regulatory scheme. There’s still opportunity to try to address the concerns to make sure that we continue to bring businesses into Colorado,” said Furman, whose organization is seeking amendments on both bills. “If nothing gets done during the special session, then both sides go back to the drawing board. There’s still five months to find a compromise to the current law, and that is an option. But we’d like to see what come from the special session.”