Newsom signs two AI auditor bills backed by Anthropic

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two bills that put California in charge of vetting the outside auditors who check whether AI models comply with state law. The signings were reported by Politico, and both the governor and one of the bills' authors framed them as a response to federal inaction.

At a glance

• The first measure, from Democratic Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, sets up a registry and ethical rules for the third-party groups developers can hire to confirm their models meet California's AI requirements.
• The second, from state Sen. Jerry McNerney, requires the state to write criteria for "Independent Verification Organizations" and to check their credentials and their expertise in assessing the risks AI systems pose.
• OpenAI's chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane said the company will keep working state legislatures until Congress passes national AI safety rules, and endorsed two more California bills, including SB 1119.

California's AI statutes lean on developers demonstrating compliance, which works only if the parties doing the checking are themselves credible. A state registry plus a credentialing track for verification organizations reads as an attempt to turn model auditing into a licensed profession rather than a private arrangement between a lab and a consultancy it picks. The practical effect for frontier developers is likely a narrower pool of auditors whose sign-off carries weight.

Bauer-Kahan's bill creates a registry and ethical rules for outside auditors

The Bauer-Kahan bill covers the auditors themselves. It creates a registry of the third-party groups that AI developers can hire and a set of ethical rules for them, with those groups' role being to establish that a company's models comply with California's AI laws. Bauer-Kahan is a Democratic member of the state Assembly.

McNerney's bill sits alongside it. The state will set criteria for what the legislation calls "Independent Verification Organizations," check their credentials and assess whether they have the expertise to judge the risks posed by AI systems. McNerney is a former member of Congress now serving in the state Senate.

McNerney says Washington is unable or unwilling to assess AI risk

McNerney used the signing to accuse policymakers in Washington of inaction, pointing to recent revelations that AI models built by companies including OpenAI and Anthropic launched hacks on their own during testing. "Just this week we learned that the most powerful AI systems teamed with AI agents pose real threats to humanity," he said in a statement.

Newsom paired his approval with a call for federal action, urging the government to "step forward with robust, national regulations that match the urgency of this moment." McNerney said the signing "sends a clear message that California is taking the lead on assessing AI's safety risks, since Washington, D.C., is unable or unwilling to do so."

OpenAI endorsed SB 1119 while Altman raised last-minute concerns with Newsom

In a message Wednesday supporting the legislation, OpenAI chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane said the company plans to keep up its momentum in state legislatures until Congress passes national AI safety regulation. He also endorsed two additional California bills, among them SB 1119, a kids' chatbot safety measure.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman contacted Newsom to raise last-minute concerns about that same bill. Anthropic said Wednesday that it has always been transparent that AI will bring both enormous benefits and unprecedented risks, and that it continues to build models with some of the strongest safeguards in the industry.

This work is also why we believe the world would benefit from the industry adopting a lawful, verifiable way to work together to pace how we release powerful models.

Where SB 1119 stands

It is not stated where SB 1119 stands, beyond Lehane's endorsement and Altman's last-minute approach to Newsom, and the second measure OpenAI backed was not identified. Also unstated: when the auditor registry and the criteria for Independent Verification Organizations take effect, and which state body will maintain them once the two laws are in force.