What AI regulation may look like in 2026

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For a look at AI potential regulation in the new year, we are joined by Bradley Tusk, founder and CEO of Tusk Tusk Ventures. Bradley, great to see you this morning. You've Right got a pretty uh a pretty uh you know thorough view of exactly where you think things are headed. On

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the regulation side and the development side for AI, obviously we got this executive order this month from the president suggesting that uh you know the federal authority should supersede states uh new laws on AI. Of course states can do what they want. They can pass the laws.

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Maybe the government will sue them. Maybe they won't. But how do you think this is coming together in terms of what elements of AI are being regulated? What states are leading?

Bradley Tusk (Founder & CEO) 00:41.200

Yeah. I mean, I think there's really three different categories. There's generative AI itself. So we just saw Governor Holker amend and then sign the Raise Act in New York. Governor Newsom did something similar a couple of months ago in California. There is the application of

Bradley Tusk (Founder & CEO) 00:55.840

AI. So Joe mentioned quickly mental health chatbots. We saw Illinois and Nevada. Both banned those last year. Seven or eight more states are taking that up right now. And then finally, and this is the one that I actually think is the biggest issue of all, which is the permitting

Bradley Tusk (Founder & CEO) 01:11.520

and zoning for data centers. And that's not even at the state level. That's at the municipal and county level. And the reason I think that will actually be the biggest issue this coming year is simply in order to power generative AI with the way that we do compute in this

Bradley Tusk (Founder & CEO) 01:27.600

country typically right now, you need vast amounts of energy. And if energy consumption doubles, which is what the prediction is, and if energy supply stays relatively flat, obviously prices go way way up, and those costs are being borne by local consumers in their electricity

Bradley Tusk (Founder & CEO) 01:44.480

bills. And once those consumers start putting two and two together and realizing that they're paying a lot more money so that Nvidia or Open AI or Oracle or whoever benefits as a result, they're going to revolt and they're going to throw everyone out of office. And Paul

Bradley Tusk (Founder & CEO) 02:00.040

Politicians, I think are smart enough to probably realize that and I think we will start to see legislation all across the country that says that cities and counties cannot issue permitting to new data centers unless there is no corresponding energy cost increase for consumers

Bradley Tusk (Founder & CEO) 02:17.160

and that's really going to be the big fight of 2026.

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Obviously, the industry puts out these warnings that it's going to stifle innovation or slow down the process Sure of the US becoming or maintaining the lead in AI. Um, do you actually think that the data center permitting or maybe the backlash against them uh is something that

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could compromise the build out here?

Bradley Tusk (Founder & CEO) 02:40.040

No, for two reasons. First of all, um if you were to say, hey, uh we're not going to make con consumers bear the cost of all of this. And keep in mind, if there is significant short-term job displacement because of AI, if you're combining people losing their jobs who are paying

Bradley Tusk (Founder & CEO) 02:56.760

50% more on their electricity bills, they're going to the revolution, right? Like that is a really bad thing to let happen. Um but beyond that, we know there are alternate forms of compute, whether it's an inference model or people are using biological compute or different types

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of memory cylinders. Um so we know that that exists. And in a way, if you were to say we're not going to just impose all of these costs and negative externalities on consumers, it actually forces innovation. It forces the companies to say, "How can we do the same sort of

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compute?" without the same sort of energy needs. So it's probably to the good. The second is you mentioned sort of the AI race in terms of things like national security. That's certainly not a new because the president allowed Naviti to sell the H-200 chips to China last week or

Bradley Tusk (Founder & CEO) 03:46.200

two weeks ago. And if this were a national security issue, you clearly wouldn't give your biggest enemy the most sensitive technology you have.