The State of State Technology Policy: 2024 Report

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Executive Summary

In this report — our third in this series — we provide an overview of developments in state technology policy over the last year. We analyze the changing political architecture at the state level during last year’s legislative sessions and review key legislative and litigation developments in state tech policy during 2024.

Our analysis revealed eight key findings:

1. The year of emboldened states. This year 46 states, every one that had a legislative session, passed 238 new pieces of technology regulation across eight categories, a 163 percent increase from last year.[1] While we expected states to be cautious given legal challenges, the possibility of federal preemption, and the need to conduct impact assessments, states enacted significantly more laws regulating technology in 2024 than in previous years, emphasizing that states continue to lead the development of technology policy in the U.S.

2. Peak trifecta control? In 2024, 40 states had trifecta governments, the highest number in generations. As in previous years, trifecta governments correlated to the passage of tech reform; this year, 89 percent of tech laws were enacted in states with trifectas. In the 2024 election, at least two states lost their trifectas. As a result, there will be 38 trifectas in the 2025 legislative session.

3. An explosion of state laws on AI. AI continued to be a central priority for state legislators, who passed more than 100 laws. States enacted a series of issue-specific bills related to non-consensual sexual imagery, political deepfakes, and copyright protections. Colorado passed a comprehensive AI bill, but other efforts to pass more encompassing AI legislation failed in states like California and Connecticut.

4. Child online safety, come hell or high water (or the courts). Amid strong legal pushback, states moved forward with a range of new child online safety regulations: imposing design restrictions, requiring age verification, and burnishing parental rights to control their children’s online activities.

5. An emerging national standard for privacy. The Washington Privacy Act continued its progression toward becoming a national standard in comprehensive privacy regulation.

6. Tax breaks for data centers. Despite growing concern about environmental impact and energy use, states continued to establish and extend tax incentives for data centers.

7. Crypto, a slow burn. Without regulatory clarity at the federal level, states passed new legislation regulating the crypto industry, covering a range of issues; including mining, commercial codes, and centralized digital currencies.

8. Content moderation on hold. With the constitutionality of state content moderation policies being actively litigated in federal courts, states largely avoided passing general content moderation policy, focusing on specific moderation areas related to AI and child online safety.

For each of the last three years, we have seen states increase the scope and quantity of state regulation. This year, facilitated by a historic level of single-party control, we saw states disregard legal challenges and push forward on broad and narrow tech policy even given the possibility of preemption from federal legislation. States enacted laws dealing with topics ranging from deepfakes to age verification to genetic data privacy to crypto mining. Figure 3 shows the number of laws passed in each of the eight topics we cover; Figure 4 breaks down the number of enacted laws by state. Figure A in the appendix lists every technology bill that we tracked. While federal law may one day pre-empt some of these laws, states have taken the lead in building the frameworks that will regulate the technology sector in these areas.

Based on our analysis, we also look ahead to the upcoming legislative sessions to ask: How will states approach technology policy in 2025? For each of the issues covered in this report, we offer a set of predictions about how state tech policy will unfold over the course of the next year.

Broadly, we expect several of the trends we observed this year will continue in 2025:

• Technology policy will continue to be a priority in many states.

• The composition of state governments will continue to help them to enact new laws at a faster pace than the federal government.

• State legislators will continue to aggressively pursue AI and online child safety reform.

Yet, predicting state policy priorities is never straightforward, and a new federal administration — with trifecta Republican control — only compounds the uncertainty in anticipating state action.

The incoming Trump administration has signaled it will embrace a more deregulatory approach. For tech, this may mean that the administration moves to limit federal regulation of crypto and roll back some of the Biden administration’s executive action on AI. Simultaneously, likely leaders in the new administration have already indicated that technology regulation is a key priority. For example, potential incoming FCC Chair Brendan Carr, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, and Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz have all been strong supporters of Section 230 reform. Vice President JD Vance has supported some of the Biden administration’s technology antitrust enforcement, at least in principle. President Trump’s first term saw the initiation of antitrust lawsuits against Google and Meta, threats of legal action against Amazon, and an executive order banning TikTok (which was reversed by President Biden before Congress passed the divestment order). Given a new set of advisors and cabinet picks with divergent views on tech policy, the extent to which similar actions will become a priority in his second term remains unknown.

Last year, we argued that in technology policy, states often take one of three roles: as trailblazers, leading the way in new regulation; as barometers, waiting for guidance from the courts; or as passengers, following the policy process led by the federal government. As the Trump administration coalesces and begins to set priorities, it is unclear how states might respond to the Trump administration, pumping either the gas or the brakes on tech regulation. Will the states hold off on areas like content moderation, antitrust, privacy, or child safety, awaiting federal regulation? Will states — especially those controlled by Democrats—redouble efforts at regulating AI or crypto, knowing that the federal government is unlikely to act? Alternatively, might they embody a fourth role: as bulwarks to fortify state policy against potential action by the Trump administration?

In 2025, states will develop their roles vis-à-vis the new administration’s policy agenda. We generally expect Democratic-led states to function as trailblazers, regulating areas where the federal government is prioritizing deregulation, such as AI and crypto. We also expect them to act as bulwarks, (pro)actively pushing back against possible federal action on issues like platform content moderation and privacy. For example, the Trump administration may introduce tech regulation related to their broader policies, such as around proPalestinian protests and immigration. In these cases, Democrat-led states may attempt to erect barriers to the federal government potentially collecting data or influencing platform content decisions, either through targeted litigation or new legislation.

Conversely, we expect Republican-led states to generally act as passengers, pursuing policy priorities set by the Trump administration, such as further deregulating crypto at the state level, prioritizing AI innovation over risk mitigation, and incentivizing data center construction regardless of climate impact. However, if the Trump administration is unable to achieve some of its legislative priorities in technology policy — perhaps due to exhausting political capital on other priorities around immigration and tariffs — then Republican states may become trailblazers on tech policies. Finally, states led by both parties will remain barometers on some issues, such as antitrust fights currently being litigated.

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  Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, and Texas only have legislative sessions in odd-numbered years. The 163 percent increase only compares the six categories included in both reports: AI, privacy, child online safety, antitrust, content moderation, and taxation.