Illinois's AI Law Makes the State Patchwork Unavoidable
Illinois's new AI safety law, SB 315, makes it the third US state to regulate frontier model developers, joining California and New York. Signed July 6, 2026, it adds a first-in-the-nation independent audit requirement that neither predecessor has. The bigger signal is that a state-by-state AI compliance patchwork is now the operating reality, not a forecast. For PMs, the takeaway isn't 'comply with Illinois'; it's whether to build governance to the highest common standard now or bet on federal preemption later.