Key point: California enacts first-in-the-nation law focused on regulating frontier artificial intelligence models.

On September 29, 2025, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 53 — the Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act (TFAIA) — into law. As explained in the Senate floor analysis, the law “requires large artificial intelligence (AI) developers . . . to publish safety frameworks, disclose specified transparency reports, and report critical safety incidents to the Office of Emergency Services (OES).” The law also “creates enhanced whistleblower protections for employees reporting AI safety violations and establishes a consortium to design a framework for ‘CalCompute,’ a public cloud platform to expand safe and equitable AI research.” The law was hailed by both Newsom and its primary sponsor, Senator Scott Wiener, as striking a proper balance between innovation and placing sensible guardrails on frontier AI models.