California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday signed an executive order requiring AI companies that do business with the state to institute safety and privacy guidelines.

The order (PDF) is designed to ensure that companies contracting with the state adhere to rigorous standards and develop responsible policies to prevent misuse of their technology while protecting consumers' safety and privacy, according to Newsom's office.

"California leads in AI, and we're going to use every tool we have to ensure companies protect people's rights, not exploit them or put them in harm's way," Newsom said in a statement. "While others in Washington are designing policy and creating contracts in the shadow of misuse, we're focused on doing this the right way."

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET's parent company, in 2025 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)  

The executive order comes as the Trump administration maintains that the federal government should be responsible for regulating the AI industry -- and that requiring AI companies to comply with 50 different sets of state laws would prevent the US from "winning" the global AI race. 

The White House recently released a new policy framework for regulating generative AI that focuses on some of the biggest concerns people have about AI: job loss, copyright chaos for creators, rapidly expanding infrastructure such as data centers and the protection of vulnerable groups like children. But critics say it doesn't go far enough to regulate the fast-growing AI industry. 

Some states have passed laws making it a crime to create sexual images of people without their consent, while others have placed restrictions on insurance companies using AI to approve or deny health care claims. Companies, including Google, Meta, OpenAI and Andreessen Horowitz, have been calling for national AI standards rather than litigating across all 50 states.