RAISE Act
In plain wordsA New York law requiring the largest AI developers to publish how they manage catastrophic risks and to report serious safety incidents quickly to a new state office. It takes effect in 2027.
New York's frontier-AI safety statute, the Responsible AI Safety and Education Act. As amended in March 2026, it applies to frontier modelsfrontier model, n.: One of the most capable AI models in existence at a given time, built by a handful of leading labs at great cost, and the main target of AI safety rules. — foundation modelsfoundation model, n.: A very large AI model, built once at great cost from vast amounts of text, images or code gathered mostly from the internet, that many products then reuse as their starting point, from chatbots to coding tools. trained with more than 10²⁶ operations, counting later fine-tuning, reinforcement learning and other material modifications — that are developed, deployed or operating in New York. 'Large frontier developers' (with affiliates, over $500 million in annual revenue) must publish a frontier AI framework describing how they assess and mitigate catastrophic risk, issue transparency reports when releasing new or substantially modified models, send periodic summaries of catastrophic-risk assessments to the regulator, and file renewable disclosure statements with an assessment fee. Critical safety incidents must be reported within 72 hours, or 24 hours if there is imminent risk of death or serious injury. A new office within the Department of Financial Services oversees the law with broad rulemaking power; penalties reach $1 million for a first violation and $3 million for later ones. It takes effect on January 1, 2027.
Under the RAISE Act, the lab has 72 hours to report a critical safety incident to the DFS office.
Origin
Sponsored by State Senator Andrew Gounardes and Assemblymember Alex Bores and passed in June 2025 in a stricter form, which banned deploying models posing an unreasonable risk of critical harm and allowed penalties of up to $30 million. Governor Kathy Hochul signed it in December 2025 on condition of chapter amendments aligning it with California's SB 53SB 53, prop. n.: A 2025 California law requiring developers of the most powerful AI models to publish their safety plans, report serious safety incidents to the state and protect employees who raise alarms.; she signed those on March 27, 2026.
Usage note
Compared with SB 53 it has a shorter incident deadline, higher repeat penalties, a dedicated regulator and fees, but no whistleblower section (dropped in 2026). It exempts academic research at New York universities and the Empire AI consortium. The amendments also removed the original annual third-party audit.
Related
- SB 53SB 53, prop. n.: A 2025 California law requiring developers of the most powerful AI models to publish their safety plans, report serious safety incidents to the state and protect employees who raise alarms.
- SB 1047SB 1047, prop. n.: A 2024 California bill that would have required makers of the biggest AI models to adopt safety plans and take care to prevent catastrophes. It passed the legislature, but the governor vetoed it.
- frontier modelfrontier model, n.: One of the most capable AI models in existence at a given time, built by a handful of leading labs at great cost, and the main target of AI safety rules.
- compute thresholdcompute threshold, n.: A legal cutoff based on how much computation was used to train an AI model. Models trained with more than that amount face extra rules, on the theory that bigger training runs produce more capable models.
- AI preemptionAI preemption, n.: The push in the United States for a single national AI law that would override the states' own AI laws, and the fight over whether that is wise or even lawful.
- AI whistleblower protectionsAI whistleblower protections, n.: Legal and company safeguards that protect employees of AI companies who report safety dangers or legal violations — to regulators or inside the company — from being fired, sued or otherwise punished.
Sources
- Cooley LLP (2026). New York's Frontier AI Law Gets a California Makeover – With Some Key Differences. cooley.com/news/insight/2026/2026-03-31-new-yorks-frontier-ai-law-gets-a-california-makeover-with-some-key-differences
Defined in law or standards
New York RAISE Act (2025), as amended by chapter amendment signed March 27, 2026
Mentioned in
frontier modelfrontier model, n.: One of the most capable AI models in existence at a given time, built by a handful of leading labs at great cost, and the main target of AI safety rules., AI preemptionAI preemption, n.: The push in the United States for a single national AI law that would override the states' own AI laws, and the fight over whether that is wise or even lawful., AI whistleblower protectionsAI whistleblower protections, n.: Legal and company safeguards that protect employees of AI companies who report safety dangers or legal violations — to regulators or inside the company — from being fired, sued or otherwise punished., catastrophic riskcatastrophic risk, n.: The risk that AI could cause disaster on a massive scale — many deaths or enormous damage — through weapons, cyberattacks or systems escaping human control. Several laws now define it precisely., compute thresholdcompute threshold, n.: A legal cutoff based on how much computation was used to train an AI model. Models trained with more than that amount face extra rules, on the theory that bigger training runs produce more capable models., responsible scaling policyresponsible scaling policy, n.: A public rulebook in which an AI company promises to test each new model for dangerous abilities and to add stronger safeguards, or slow down, as its models become more capable., SB 1047SB 1047, prop. n.: A 2024 California bill that would have required makers of the biggest AI models to adopt safety plans and take care to prevent catastrophes. It passed the legislature, but the governor vetoed it., SB 53SB 53, prop. n.: A 2025 California law requiring developers of the most powerful AI models to publish their safety plans, report serious safety incidents to the state and protect employees who raise alarms.