California Governor Gavin Newsom slammed President Donald Trump on Monday when signing an executive order calling for stronger guardrails on artificial intelligence.
Newsom in a statement said the state needed to strengthen its procurement process and place more scrutiny on AI companies that want to do business here. His order seeks to vet such companies for heightened standards and internal policies that stop the misuse of their technology.
It also builds upon existing AI legislation passed last year, the Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act, which put restrictions on the development of AI in the state, the governor’s office said in a statement to Courthouse News.
Pointing to California as the world’s fourth-largest economy, Newsom said the state is committed to stopping bad actors who want to exploit people’s data, undermine security and violate civil rights.
“California leads in AI, and we’re going to use every tool we have to ensure companies protect people’s rights, not exploit them or put them in harm’s way,” Newsom said in a statement. “While others in Washington are designing policy and creating contracts in the shadow of misuse, we’re focused on doing this the right way.”
The governor said the move comes after the Trump administration made contracting errors, trying to force companies to violate user privacy and civil rights while using technology that endangered people.
Anthropic, a leading AI developer, sued the federal government this month over claims Trump retaliated against it. Anthropic said its main goal is to ensure its AI systems are the safest and most responsible, which led it to tell the administration those systems couldn’t be safely or reliably used for autonomous lethal warfare and surveilling Americans.
That led Trump to tell all federal agencies to stop using the company’s technology, despite the Department of Defense already agreeing to the tech business’s conditions, Anthropic claimed.
Newsom made no specific mention of Anthropic in his order.
Under the governor’s order, the state Government Operations Agency will create new contracting processes. Companies wanting to work in California will have to explain how their policies protect people from the distribution of illegal content, AI models with bias and civil rights and free speech violations.
Additionally, the order will lead the state Department of Technology to develop recommendations and best practices for marking AI-created images or manipulated video.
“California’s always been the birthplace of innovation,” Newsom said. “But we also understand the flip side: In the wrong hands, innovation can be misused in ways that put people at risk.”
The order also calls for expanding the Engaged California program. The state last year announced that program, which is an online tool that helped California communicate with people affected by the massive Los Angeles County wildfires in 2025.
Now, the online tool will go statewide. Newsom said it will assist the state when responding to AI and how it impacts workers, as Californians will have the option to give input. Its rollout is expected in the next few months.
The order also empowers California to break off its procurement process from the federal government, enabling the state to use AI for improved services, better transparency and stronger accountability, the governor said.
AI has dominated news headlines and California’s legislative corridors the past few years, as lawmakers sought to ensure the responsible development of the technology.
State Senator Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat, in 2024 wrote a bill that would have required AI developers, along with those who provide the computing power to train them, to ensure catastrophic harm was avoided by placing guardrails on AI.
Newsom vetoed the bill, saying it fell short of a flexible, comprehensive solution.
Wiener then returned in 2025 with a new version of the bill that included recommendations from Newsom. It requires large AI developers to create safety frameworks, release transparency reports and report critical incidents to the state.
The bill passed and became effective Jan. 1.
Originally written by: Alan Riquelmy
Source: Courthouse News Service
Published on: 30 March 2026
Link to original article: California governor issues executive order about AI
