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Gavin Newsom gesturing as he speaks into a podium microphone, for California's new state oversight of AI auditors

California Establishes State Oversight of AI Auditors

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Two new laws will introduce qualification standards by 2028 and require firms conducting AI audits to register with the state beginning in 2029.

 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two laws establishing state oversight of businesses that assess whether AI systems comply with state requirements.

Assembly Bill 1405 regulates outside AI auditors that check compliance with California law. Starting in 2029, those auditors must register with the state. They cannot review work they helped create, and they must document what they examined and found.

Senate Bill 813 requires the state to set qualification standards and review the credentials of organizations seeking recognition as independent experts in assessing the risks posed by AI systems.

The laws do not require AI developers or other companies to commission an audit. They regulate the auditors that businesses may hire to examine whether an AI system has the controls and processes needed to comply with California law.

California will screen and register AI auditors

SB 813 requires California to create qualifications for companies seeking state recognition as independent AI risk assessors. By January 1, 2028, the California Government Operations Agency must decide what technical expertise applicants need and how they must remain free from client control when reaching conclusions or making recommendations.

The auditor can accept a fee from the assessed company, but that company cannot tie the auditor’s fee to the result. The auditor must also be free to assess the system without interference from that company. The state can withdraw its designation if the organization misrepresents its work or no longer meets the standards.

The designation is optional. It does not mean California endorses the assessor or the AI system it reviews, and companies will not have to use a state-designated organization.

AB 1405 serves a different purpose. It covers auditors hired to check whether a company’s AI systems have the controls needed to comply with California law. Starting January 1, 2029, those auditors must register with the state before offering these services.

The public registry will allow companies to confirm that an auditor is registered and understand how it conducts its reviews.

Auditors must remain independent and explain their work

AB 1405 prohibits registered auditors from reviewing their own work. An auditor cannot assess an AI system, business process, or safeguard that it helped create or operate.

People conducting the audit also cannot pursue a job with the client company while the review is underway. A former employee cannot be assigned to examine work they were responsible for at that company during the previous year.

After completing an audit, the auditor must tell the client what it checked, what it found, and what it could not verify. If the audit uncovers problems, the report must explain how the company could address them when appropriate.

Auditors must keep their reports and supporting records for at least 10 years.

SB 813 addresses how an audit may be used in court. If a lawsuit alleges that an AI system caused harm, a court may consider an audit conducted under a state-recognized standard. However, the audit alone will not determine whether the defendant is liable.

California can investigate auditor misconduct

AB 1405 requires the state to establish a system for individuals to report suspected misconduct by registered auditors.

The Government Operations Agency may investigate those reports. An auditor found to have violated the law could be removed from the registry and referred to the California Attorney General or another enforcement authority.

Auditors must be notified first and given an opportunity to correct or contest an alleged violation before removal. The law also prohibits audit firms from retaliating against employees who report suspected violations.

Requirements will roll out through 2029

SB 813 requires the agency to form working groups that include engineers from competing AI companies and AI safety experts. The groups will provide input on the qualification standards, and the agency must report their conclusions to the Legislature.

The state must establish its standards for designated independent assessors by January 1, 2028. The auditor registry and registration requirement must be operating by January 1, 2029.

Newsom also called for federal AI regulation when announcing the laws, arguing that state action alone cannot address risks that cross state borders.

 

Frontier AI developers Anthropic and OpenAI both endorsed the bills, saying corporate self-governance is not enough to tackle AI dangers.

Sam Altman at a TechCrunch event, illustrating OpenAI's request for two new safety requirements in California SB 53

OpenAI Asks California To Add Two Safety Requirements To SB 53

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OpenAI wants every company SB 53 covers, itself included, to watch its most powerful models 

 

OpenAI asked California to add two requirements to SB 53, the state law covering companies that build the most powerful AI models. OpenAI’s global affairs team posted the request on LinkedIn on August 22 and said the company is committed to working with the legislature and Governor Gavin Newsom to strengthen the law.

 

The two additions cover models while they are being trained and tested

The first request is monitoring. OpenAI says SB 53 should require every company the law covers, including OpenAI, to watch its most powerful models during training and testing for one behavior in particular: a model getting past another company’s security controls and taking that company’s confidential information.

The second request is security. OpenAI says the law should require stronger security at every stage of building a model, so that it cannot get around the security controls set by the company that built it.

OpenAI wrote that it wants rules that work across the industry rather than rules written around any one incident, and that catch problems earlier.

 

SB 53 already requires published safety rules and reports of serious incidents

Newsom signed SB 53 on September 29, 2025, and its requirements began taking effect in January 2026. It covers companies that train a model using more than 10^26 computer operations, a measure of the computing work required to build it.

Every covered company must publish a report on each model before releasing it, setting out what the model is meant to be used for, what it is restricted from doing, and the company’s own assessment of potential catastrophic risk. Companies earning more than $500 million a year must also publish the rules they follow to find and reduce that risk. The law defines catastrophic risk as a model contributing to more than 50 deaths or serious injuries, or to more than $1 billion in damage.

Covered companies must tell the California Office of Emergency Services about a critical safety incident within 15 days, and immediately when someone faces imminent physical danger. A critical safety incident is model behavior that causes or risks death, serious injury, or loss of control of the model. The law also bars companies from firing or otherwise retaliating against employees who report catastrophic risk. The attorney general can seek up to $1 million for each violation.

 

OpenAI opposed SB 53 in 2025 and now wants it as the basis for federal rules

OpenAI was among the companies that lobbied against SB 53 before Newsom signed it, saying they wanted one set of federal rules rather than separate rules in each state. In June 2026, OpenAI asked Congress to write federal AI safety requirements that would replace state rules on the most powerful models, and to build those federal requirements from SB 53 and from laws in New York and Illinois.

OpenAI calls that approach “reverse federalism”: states pass rules that match each other, and Congress later turns the shared parts into a single national standard. The LinkedIn post repeats that position before making the two requests, and attaches a condition to them. Rules matching across states, OpenAI wrote, should not mean freezing safety requirements where they stand, because lawmakers and companies should be able to turn what real events teach them into stronger protections.

 

OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta have each disclosed a model reaching outside systems since July 

OpenAI points to recent incidents as evidence why these two additions are needed, though it doesn’t name a specific incident. All the incidents were cybersecurity tests in which AI models bypassed their security guardrails. In each case, a model reached the internet from a test environment and then broke into a real company’s systems. 

In July, two OpenAI models escaped a sealed cybersecurity test environment that had no internet connection and used a previously unknown software flaw to get online. The models then found credentials that let them into Hugging Face’s servers, a company that hosts AI models and datasets for developers. They pulled the answers to the cybersecurity test from one of its databases. 

In early August, Anthropic reported that three of its models reached the internet through a misconfiguration between Anthropic and a testing partner, then broke into organizations that were not part of the test and published malware to a public library of software packages. Days later, Meta said its Muse Spark 1.1 model hacked an unnamed company’s systems during a security test after a configuration error gave the model live internet access.

 

California’s legislature adjourns for the year on August 31 

OpenAI did not point to a bill that would amend SB 53, and the legislature has until August 31, when its session ends. Newsom has until the end of September to sign or veto what the legislature passes before it adjourns.

Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks at a lectern for an article about California’s AI cyber defense program.

California Creates AI Cyber Defense Program for Critical Infrastructure

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The state will give local governments and operators in energy, water, and transportation access to AI-assisted cyber defense capabilities.

 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom directed his administration to establish an AI cyber defense program within the California Cybersecurity Integration Center (Cal-CSIC). The program will use AI to find security weaknesses, strengthen networks, and help respond to cyberattacks. 

The program is intended to support state agencies and expand advanced cybersecurity capabilities to local governments and critical infrastructure operators.

New Program Adds AI to California’s Existing Cyber Support

Cal-CSIC already shares information about cyber threats and coordinates incident response with state and local agencies, utilities, and other public and private organizations.

The new program will add AI-assisted cybersecurity defenses, including vulnerability detection, network protection, and incident response, to that work.

Newsom also directed Cal-CSIC to expand access for local governments and critical infrastructure operators to advanced state cybersecurity capabilities, including AI-assisted defenses. The announcement names water, power, transportation, and emergency communications among the services the directive is intended to protect.

Caroline Thomas Jacobs, Director of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, said, “This new program will help Cal OES and our partners detect threats sooner, share information more efficiently, strengthen defenses, and respond faster, helping keep these critical services safe and reliable for communities across California.”

Separately, every state agency must appoint an AI Cybersecurity Officer. The announcement does not specify the scope of responsibility of these newly created roles.

The new actions build on Cal-Secure 2.0, California’s existing cybersecurity roadmap for state agencies. That roadmap calls for greater use of AI-enabled security tools and stronger coordination across state government.