Illinois Becomes First U.S. State to Mandate Annual Independent Audit of Peak Models

The Artificial Intelligence Safety Measures Act goes further than the California and New York reporting regimes by requiring a published third-party audit.

Signed on July 6, 2026 by Governor JB Pritzker, the Artificial Intelligence Safety Measures Act makes Illinois the third-largest US state, after California and New York, to impose transparency, security and reporting obligations on major AI developers. It is, however, the only one of the three that requires a mandatory annual audit by an independent third party.

The text targets "high-tech models", defined by a training calculation threshold above 1026 operations, and "high-tech developers", i.e. those whose annual gross turnover, including affiliates, exceeds $500 million the previous year. Audit obligations are accompanied by detailed requirements on the auditor's competence, the screening of conflicts of interest and the publication of the report.

The schedule leaves time: the Act comes into force on January 1, 2027, but the audit component only applies as of January 1, 2028, or 90 days after a developer crosses the thresholds if later. In the absence of a federal framework — a bipartisan project remains blocked on the issue of the preemption of state laws — it is this state-by-state stacking that takes place in the United States.