Sponsor
Zoe Lofgren
Representative · D-CA
Representative · D-CA
The bill promotes AI transparency and offers voluntary NIST‑backed standards plus a short pilot to inform policy, but voluntary rules and a limited pilot risk leaving many AI outputs unlabeled and imposing costs on small firms.
Consumers would get clearer labels indicating when content is AI‑generated or manipulated, improving transparency and making it easier to identify AI content.
Developers and companies (especially tech workers and small firms) would have NIST‑backed voluntary standards to follow, reducing regulatory uncertainty and helping interoperability and best practices.
Congress (and thus taxpayers and policymakers) will receive a 180‑day report from a pilot on feasibility, usefulness, limitations, and recommendations, providing evidence to inform future public policy.
Consumers could still face unlabeled AI content because the labeling and standards are voluntary and companies may opt out or not comply.
Small AI firms and tech workers could incur higher compliance costs and technical burdens to implement provenance systems, potentially raising prices or creating barriers to entry.
Policymakers and technology developers may receive incomplete guidance because the pilot's limited scope and one‑year deadline might not capture all uses, edge cases, or technical limits of provenance approaches.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires NIST to run a pilot (within 1 year) testing voluntary AI disclosure and content provenance approaches and to report findings to Congress.
Official title: To amend the National Institute of Standards and Technology Act to direct the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology to establish a pilot program and develop voluntary disclosure standards relating to the use of artificial intelligence systems by private sector entities, and for other purposes.
Introduced June 24, 2026 by Zoe Lofgren · Last progress June 24, 2026
Creates a NIST-run pilot program to test voluntary labels, provenance markings, and disclosure approaches for AI-generated or AI-manipulated content and for real-time user interactions with AI systems. NIST must set up the pilot within one year, consult federal agencies and private-sector, civil-society, and academic stakeholders, use results to inform voluntary guidelines and standards, and file a report to relevant congressional committees within 180 days after the pilot ends describing findings and recommendations. Defines key terms (including “artificial intelligence,” “artificial intelligence system,” and “content provenance”) and integrates the pilot into the existing NIST authority to support standards development. The pilot focuses on feasibility, usefulness, limitations, and next steps for voluntary consumer-facing AI disclosure practices.