AI Jobs Are Growing. The Law Should Keep Up.

The Senate parliamentarian has spoken. AI preemption can be included in the reconciliation bill. That clears the way for Congress to take a smart, targeted step to keep American innovation from getting buried under a pile of conflicting state rules. When the bill reaches the Senate floor, any move to strike this provision should be a nonstarter. Preemption is not a side note. It is the safeguard that prevents the country from sleepwalking into a regulatory disaster.

Without it, developers and researchers will be forced to navigate a confusing web of inconsistent state laws. That is not a recipe for responsible innovation. It is a gift to trial lawyers, a burden for small developers, and a fast track to falling behind in the global AI race.

This is not a theoretical concern. States like Utah, Kentucky, and Tennessee are already building strong AI economies. Utah ranks high in AI-related job demand. Nearly nine percent of Utah employers now seek workers with AI skills, a sharp increase from just two years ago1. Kentucky’s tech workforce grew by more than two percent in a single year, and total job growth is outpacing the national average2. Tennessee has seen a fifty percent rise in tech employment in Middle Tennessee since 2015, and state leaders are preparing the next generation with mandatory computer science education in every high school3.

That kind of momentum cannot survive fifty separate AI rulebooks. Preemption provides a single, constitutionally sound framework while preserving each state’s authority to enforce neutral consumer protection laws. It ensures that innovation policy is set by elected lawmakers, not by state agencies with no national accountability.

The Senate has a choice. It can stand for innovation, clarity, and economic opportunity, or it can allow the courts and the states to drag this technology into chaos. Preemption is a limited fix with major upside. It deserves to stay in the bill. The states that are creating AI jobs should not be halted.

  1. Axios Salt Lake City, “Utah employers increasingly require AI skills,” April 29, 2025. https://www.axios.com/local/salt-lake-city/2025/04/29/utah-employers-require-ai-skills-jobs ↩︎

  2. Kentucky Center for Statistics, “Workforce Overview,” 2023; CompTIA Cyberstates Report 2023 ↩︎

  3. Axios Nashville, “Tennessee among the first states to require computer science for high schoolers,” May 12, 2025. https://www.axios.com/local/nashville/2025/05/12/tennessee-high-school-computer-science-requirement ↩︎