Utah touts sector-specific AI strategy, separates data-privacy effort
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Summary
A representative from the Governor—s Office of Economic Opportunity told the Utah League of Cities and Towns that Utah pursued a design-driven, sector-specific approach to artificial intelligence, creating a learning lab and splitting data privacy into a separate policy track to protect residents while encouraging innovation.
A representative from the Governor—s Office of Economic Opportunity told the Utah League of Cities and Towns that the state has taken a sector-specific, design-driven approach to artificial intelligence policy and has separated data privacy into its own effort to protect residents.
—When ChatGPT came out, that was the first thing,— the speaker said, describing a small working group that included academics, practitioners and a former supreme court justice. The group used design thinking—empathy, problem definition, iteration, prototyping and testing—over roughly six months to identify targeted, industry-specific safeguards rather than broad, one-size-fits-all rules.
The state—s approach, the speaker said, emphasizes transparency and sector best practices. Utah—s early work addressed risks such as deepfakes and child-exploitation uses and produced provisions meant to protect consumers while allowing innovation. For mental-health applications, the team prioritized safeguards against hallucinations and manipulative interactions with youth and proposed industry best practices that vendors would need to follow.
The speaker described a parallel data-privacy effort after the group repeatedly encountered privacy roadblocks. —The more you get into AI, it—s like, well, how do you protect this information?— he said, explaining the decision to make data privacy its own initiative so protections could apply beyond AI to future platforms.
To reduce regulatory friction, the administration also proposed limited occupational-licensing relief tied to adherence to defined best practices. —You don—t have a license for that, but as long as you—re following these processes, you—ll get an exemption,— the speaker said.
The administration established a learning lab to test and refine guidance with sector experts rather than rely solely on annual legislative sessions. The speaker identified Zach Boyd (academia) among participants and said the lab—s work focused last year on mental-health tools.
The state—s strategy, the speaker added, aims to be a —light touch pro-innovation— model that nevertheless offers transparency and guardrails so agencies, businesses and local governments can leverage AI with reduced risk.
