AI Laws in Austin, Texas
AI Laws USA tracks 44 AI rules that apply to people and businesses in Austin, Texas: 10+ federal rules, 32 Texas state-level rules, and 2 local Austin ordinances. Coverage is strongest on automated decision-making, AI disclosure and transparency, consumer protection, and government use of AI. 33 of these rules are already in effect. Each entry below links to its official source.
Austin local AI rules (and Travis County)
2 local AI rules specific to Austin, Texas or Travis County.
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In effect Strength: limited
Austin AI Governance Resolution (2025)
Austin, TX · Effective April 24, 2025 · City of Austin, Tex., Resolution 20250424-055 (adopted Apr. 24, 2025)
The Austin City Council voted unanimously on April 24, 2025 to adopt Resolution 20250424-055, establishing an ethical AI governance framework for municipal operations. The resolution prohibits real-time employee surveillance by AI, bans AI-based productivity scoring or behavioral monitoring without human supervisor review and verification, bars AI from automated policing decisions, and creates a 'no displacement without consultation' labor policy guaranteeing that no AI system will significantly alter or eliminate job classifications without prior notice and consultation with affected employees and their unions. It also requires an annual public audit of all city AI use, mandates human review and oversight for all AI-influenced decisions, and directs the City Manager to study the environmental and equity impacts of data centers in the region. Sponsored by Mayor Pro Tem Vanessa Fuentes.
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In effect Strength: limited
Austin Transparent and Responsible Use of Surveillance Techn
Austin, TX · Effective April 23, 2026 · Austin Transparent and Responsible Use of Surveillance Technology (TRUST) Act
After letting its Flock ALPR contract expire in 2025, the Austin City Council passed the TRUST Act requiring council approval and public review before departments can acquire, use, or share data from surveillance technology like license plate readers and drones.
Texas-level AI rules most relevant to Austin
32 Texas state rules apply to residents and businesses in Austin. Showing the 8 most relevant to Austin's local picture; 24 more are on the Texas jurisdiction page.
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In effect Strength: limited
TRAIGA
Texas · Effective January 1, 2026 · Tex. Bus. & Com. Code Ch. 552; Tex. HB 149 (89th Leg., R.S., 2025), TRAIGA
Texas's AI law bans specific harmful uses of AI — intentional discrimination, behavioral manipulation encouraging self-harm or crime, social scoring by government, and certain biometric identification without consent — and requires government agencies to disclose AI interactions to consumers. It includes a regulatory sandbox and preempts local AI ordinances.
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In effect Strength: limited
AI Systems Code of Ethics and Minimum Risk Management and Go
Texas · Effective March 1, 2026 · AI Systems Code of Ethics and Minimum Risk Management and Governance Standards (1 TAC Chapter 219)
Under Government Code 2054.702 and SB 1964, the Texas Department of Information Resources adopted a statewide AI code of ethics built on seven principles (human oversight, fairness, accuracy, redress, transparency, privacy, security) plus minimum risk-management standards for heightened-scrutiny AI systems.
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In effect Strength: limited
Texas A&M System Regulation 29.01.05, Artificial Intelligenc
Texas A&M University System · Effective December 10, 2024 · Texas A&M System Regulation 29.01.05, Artificial Intelligence
The Texas A&M University System's AI regulation governs all AI activities system-wide, requiring AI inventories, data classification, bias audits, safeguards against algorithmic discrimination, and academic-integrity citation rules.
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In effect Strength: limited
Texas HB 3512 government AI training mandate (2025)
Texas · Effective September 1, 2025 · Tex. H.B. 3512, 89th Leg., R.S. (2025); Texas Gov't Code (Ch. 2054 or adjacent section, eff. Sept. 1, 2025)
Texas HB 3512 requires state and local government employees who use a computer as at least 25 percent of their job duties to complete annual AI awareness training, beginning in FY2026 (which starts September 1, 2025 in Texas). The Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR) certifies at least five training programs. Each program must meet seven statutory standards: it must be designed for adults, cover practical use cases and examples of AI use in the workplace, define AI, be self-paced and online, take two hours or less, have no licensure requirement, and be offered at no cost. The 25 percent threshold is meaningful: it applies broadly across state agencies and political subdivisions, reaching not only IT workers but any employee whose job substantially involves a computer — administrators, case workers, clerks. The training mandate is a companion to Texas Government Code Chapter 2054 Subchapter S, already indexed as tx-ch-2054-ai-gov, which established the broader AI governance framework for state agencies requiring agency AI use inventories, responsible-use policies, and bias-risk assessments. HB 3512 adds the workforce-facing layer to that framework.
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In effect Strength: limited
TX Government AI Governance (Subchapter S / SB 1964)
Texas · Effective September 1, 2025 · Tex. S.B. 1964, 89th Leg., R.S. (2025); Tex. Gov't Code ch. 2054, subch. S
Texas now requires state agencies to catalog the artificial intelligence systems they use and to give extra review to higher-risk systems that influence consequential decisions about people. The state's Department of Information Resources must publish a statewide AI code of ethics and set baseline rules for managing AI risk and governance, and agencies must run assessments on their highest-scrutiny systems. When a member of the public interacts with a government AI system, the agency has to tell them they are dealing with AI. If an agency or its vendor breaks these rules, the attorney general can go to court to stop the violation and can void a vendor's contract that caused it.
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In effect Strength: limited
TX SB 2205 (2017 AV statute)
Texas · Effective September 1, 2017 · Tex. Transp. Code §§ 545.451–545.456
Texas's main autonomous-vehicle law explicitly authorizes AVs to operate on Texas roads without a human driver, defines the 'owner' of an automated driving system as the legal operator for liability and traffic enforcement, and preempts local AV bans. It set the framework that later allowed Waymo, Cruise, and Aurora freight to operate in Texas.
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In effect Strength: limited
Attorney General Ken Paxton Investigates Meta and Character.
Texas · Effective August 18, 2025 · Attorney General Ken Paxton Investigates Meta and Character.AI for Misleading Children with Deceptive AI-Generated Mental Health Services
The Texas Attorney General issued Civil Investigative Demands to Meta AI Studio and Character.AI to determine whether their AI chatbots deceptively marketed themselves as mental-health tools to children in violation of Texas consumer-protection law.
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In effect Strength: stronger
Texas TWDB data center water reporting penalties (2026)
Texas · Effective September 14, 2026 · Tex. Governor's Directive to the Tex. Water Dev. Bd. (Sept. 14, 2026)
Governor Greg Abbott directed the Texas Water Development Board on September 14, 2026 to penalize data centers that do not report their water usage. The reason is a compliance failure rather than a policy gap: over the past three years, as few as 28% of data centers responded to the state's mandated water usage survey. A reporting requirement that three-quarters of its subjects ignore is not a reporting requirement, and this directive supplies the consequences that were missing. Non-compliance can carry criminal consequences and can make a data center ineligible for water permits, amendments or renewals under Chapter 11 of the Texas Water Code. Abbott instructed the Board to refer violations to the appropriate county or district attorney, and to notify the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality about potential permit disqualification. He also directed the Board to coordinate with the Public Utility Commission of Texas, the state's water utilities and ERCOT on the separate data center audit he ordered in August — which requires projects moving through ERCOT's interconnection queue to verify their water consumption, water sources and cooling technologies before proceeding, with non-compliant projects denied a grid connection. The Board must report back on enforcement by October 14, 2026.
Federal AI rules that apply in Austin, Texas
These federal rules apply everywhere in the United States, including Austin, Texas. Showing the 10 strongest and most recent.
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In effect Strength: stronger
TVA data center capacity commitment charge (2026)
Tennessee Valley Authority · Effective October 1, 2026 · Tenn. Valley Auth. Bd. of Dirs. — Data Center Capacity Commitment Charge (approved Aug. 20, 2026; eff. Oct. 1, 2026)
The Tennessee Valley Authority's Board of Directors approved a separate, higher wholesale rate for data centers on August 20, 2026, effective October 1. New or expanding data center loads above 5 megawatts now fall under a Capacity Commitment Charge attached to TVA's data center rate schedules, designed to recover the incremental capacity costs those customers impose on the system. The headline figures are substantial: upfront capacity commitment charges of roughly $1.5 million per megawatt, payable over three to five years, and an all-in average billing increase for data center customers of about 10%, phased in across three consecutive fiscal years. The stated purpose is to keep residential rates low while still serving growing data center demand. TVA matters here out of proportion to a single utility. It is a federal corporate agency supplying power across seven states, so this is not a state rate case but a regional cost-allocation decision reaching a large share of the Southeast — and TVA is among the first large US utilities to adopt a tariff aimed specifically at AI-driven load. Where most 2026 measures in this dataset restrict where data centers may be built, this one changes what they pay to run.
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In effect Strength: stronger
Bartz v. Anthropic
N.D. Cal. · Effective September 5, 2025 · Bartz v. Anthropic PBC, No. 3:24-cv-05417 (N.D. Cal.)
Authors Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson sued Anthropic over its use of pirated-book datasets to train Claude. In June 2025 Judge William Alsup ruled that training on lawfully purchased books was fair use. The piracy claims (LibGen ingestion) proceeded toward settlement; in September 2025 Anthropic agreed to a $1.5 billion class settlement covering ~500,000 works. Judge Alsup granted preliminary approval September 25, 2025 and final approval July 20, 2026. The appeal period runs through August 19, 2026; class members will not receive payments until at least end of 2026.
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In effect Strength: stronger
COPPA + 2025 Rule (childrens data)
United States · Effective June 23, 2025 · 15 U.S.C. §§ 6501–6506; 16 C.F.R. Part 312
COPPA requires online services aimed at children under 13 to get verifiable parental consent before collecting kids' personal data. The 2025 rule update — fully in effect since April 22, 2026 — adds biometric identifiers (like face templates and voiceprints, which matter for AI tools), requires separate parental consent before sharing children's data for targeted advertising, and tightens data retention limits.
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In effect Strength: stronger
TAKE IT DOWN Act
United States · Effective May 19, 2025 · Pub. L. No. 119-12 (S. 146)
Makes it a federal crime to knowingly publish intimate images of someone without consent, including AI-generated deepfakes. Social media and similar platforms must give victims a way to request removal and must take the content (and known copies) down within 48 hours. The platform removal requirement became enforceable May 19, 2026, and the FTC has already begun enforcement.
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Blocked / in litigation
NetChoice v. Yost (Ohio)
S.D. Ohio · Effective April 16, 2025 · NetChoice, LLC v. Yost, No. 2:24-cv-00047 (S.D. Ohio Apr. 16, 2025)
Ohio's Social Media Parental Notification Act — requiring parental consent for minors' social-media use, including algorithmic feeds — was preliminarily enjoined on February 12, 2024, then permanently enjoined on April 16, 2025 when the district court granted summary judgment for NetChoice. The state appealed to the Sixth Circuit, which vacated the district court's injunction in 2026.
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In effect Strength: stronger
Thaler v. Perlmutter (Copyright)
D.C. Cir. · Effective March 18, 2025 · Thaler v. Perlmutter, 130 F.4th 1039 (D.C. Cir. 2025)
The companion copyright case: Stephen Thaler sought to register a copyright with 'Creativity Machine' (his AI) as the author. The D.C. Circuit affirmed in March 2025 that the Copyright Act's human-authorship requirement is dispositive as a matter of statutory law. AI cannot be a copyright author under U.S. law.
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In effect Strength: stronger
Louis v. SafeRent
D. Mass. · Effective November 20, 2024 · Louis v. SafeRent Solutions, LLC, No. 1:22-cv-10800 (D. Mass.)
SafeRent agreed in November 2024 to a $2.275M settlement and a five-year ban on using its 'SafeRent Score' for housing-voucher applicants, after a class action alleged its AI tenant-screening tool systematically denied housing to Black and Hispanic Section 8 voucher holders. The first major AI tenant-screening Fair Housing Act settlement.
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In effect Strength: stronger
FTC Impersonation Rule (AI)
United States · Effective April 1, 2024 · 16 C.F.R. Part 461; 89 Fed. Reg. 15017
The FTC's Impersonation Rule lets the agency directly sue scammers who pretend to be a government agency or a real business — including those who use AI-cloned voices or generated images to do so. Civil penalties can reach $53,088 per violation. The FTC also issued a supplemental notice in February 2024 proposing to extend the rule to all individual impersonation.
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In effect Strength: stronger
FTC v. Rite Aid
FTC · Effective February 26, 2024 · FTC v. Rite Aid Corp., No. 2:23-cv-05023 (E.D. Pa. Dec. 19, 2023)
The FTC banned Rite Aid from using facial-recognition technology in its stores for five years after finding the pharmacy chain's FRT system falsely tagged customers — disproportionately women and people of color — as shoplifters, leading to wrongful detentions and humiliations.
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In effect Strength: stronger
TCPA (AI voice calls)
United States · Effective February 8, 2024 · 47 U.S.C. § 227; FCC 24-17
Robocalls using AI-cloned or AI-generated voices are treated like other 'artificial voice' calls: callers need your prior express consent, must identify themselves, and must offer opt-outs for telemarketing. You can personally sue violators for $500 to $1,500 per illegal call.
Frequently asked questions about AI laws in Austin, Texas
Are there AI laws in Austin, Texas?
What federal AI rules apply in Austin?
Does Texas have an AI privacy law?
Are deepfakes illegal in Texas?
Can my employer use AI to screen me for jobs in Austin?
How do I report an AI law violation in Austin?
Are facial recognition cameras allowed in Austin?
Is Austin regulated by Texas's consumer privacy act?
Compliance guides for Texas businesses
Plain-English guides to the Texas AI and data laws companies most often need to comply with:
Texas AI law (TRAIGA) · Texas data-privacy profiling opt-out
Have we missed an AI rule in Austin?
This page is generated from our open civic dataset. If you know of a Austin ordinance, county rule, or local enforcement action we should add, email feedback@ailawsusa.com or submit a correction. Every entry must include a verifiable source.