Reboot Weekly: Modernizing Regulation, Making Services Multilingual, and Listening First

Published on January 22, 2026

Summary

Reeve Bull shows how Virginia is using AI to improve regulatory review, from analyzing statutes to streamlining outdated rules. Anirudh Dinesh looks to India, where the Bhashini platform expands democratic participation by enabling people to engage with government in the languages they actually speak. At the state level, New York advances one of the most comprehensive AI governance agendas yet, while new research from Brookings and the ACLU explains where AI policy takes root and how lawmakers can better understand the growing body of AI legislation. Finally, a viral vibecoded tool from Estonia shows how simple civic AI can quickly catch and fix legislative errors. Check out the the Reboot News along with the latest workshops from InnovateUS.

Upcoming InnovateUS Workshops

InnovateUS delivers no-cost, at-your-own-pace, and live learning on data, digital, innovation, and AI skills. Designed for civic and public sector, programs are free and open to all.

Using Generative AI to Improve Everyday Workflows for Public Professionals – Deborah Stine, January 23, 2:00 PM ET

Reimagining Public Institutions: Rethinking Leadership for Organizational Transformation – Christian Bason, January 26, 12:00 PM ET

Telling Public Stories with Data – Lee Rainie, January 27, 2:00 PM ET

Governing AI

Governor Hochul Unveils Proposals to Protect Consumers and Workers

Kathy Hochul on January 13, 2026 in State of New York

As part of her 2026 State of the State, Governor Hochul announced a sweeping package to strengthen digital governance, consumer protection, and worker safeguards. The proposals include creating a first-of-its-kind Office of Digital Innovation, Governance, Integrity & Trust (DIGIT); regulating data brokers; requiring labeling for AI-generated content; banning deceptive election deepfakes; and increasing transparency around algorithmic practices. Framed as a response to rapid AI adoption and federal inaction, the agenda positions New York as a state-level testbed for integrated AI oversight that links privacy, elections, labor, and consumer protection.

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Governing AI

Why AI Policy Thrives in Some States and Fades in Others

James S. Denford, Gregory S. Dawson, Kevin C. Desouza & Marc E. B. Picavet on January 14, 2026 in Brookings Institution

This study explains where and why AI regulation emerges at the state level. Using a comparative analysis of 385 AI-related bills across all 50 states, the authors show that legislative activity depends on clearing two barriers: capacity (money, administrative sophistication, and younger populations) and ideology (partisan alignment and regulatory willingness). States with both tend to produce robust AI frameworks; those lacking either stall out. The result is a durable geography of AI governance, likely to persist or harden as federal efforts to constrain state experimentation advance.

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Governing AI

Using AI to Make Sense of AI Policy

Tuan Pham, Evani Radiya-Dixit, Marissa Gerchick, Brooke Madubuonwu, and Suresh Venkatasubramanian on January 8, 2026 in American Civil Liberties Union & Center for Tech Responsibility at Brown University

This research report shows how computational methods can help policymakers and advocates navigate the rapidly expanding landscape of AI legislation, focusing on how AI legislation is written, copied, and interpreted. Reviewing 1,800+ state and federal bills, the authors show how AI can reveal policy diffusion across jurisdictions, trace model-bill influence, and expose hidden weaknesses inside individual laws. The report positions computational analysis as a practical drafting and oversight tool, and calls for standardized, machine-readable bill formats and multilingual analysis to improve democratic accountability in AI governance.

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AI for Governance

AI and the Future of State Regulation

Reeve Bull on January 20, 2026 in Reboot Democracy

This article reframes the AI debate away from how to regulate emerging technologies and toward how governments can use AI to perform their core work more effectively. Drawing on reforms led by the Virginia Office of Regulatory Management, Reeve Bull details how AI is being applied to analyze statutes, streamline regulations, reduce administrative burden, and improve legal clarity. The “Virginia Model” shows how AI can serve as regulatory infrastructure, augmenting human judgment, accelerating reform timelines, and making the law more accessible, offering a concrete, replicable path for other states seeking to modernize their governance.

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AI for Governance

From Prototype to National TV in 12 Hours: How I Vibecoded a Fix to Shoddy Lawmaking in an Afternoon

Luukas Ilves on January 18, 2026 in Substack

After a drafting error in Estonia’s gambling tax law accidentally made online casinos tax-free, Luukas Ilves built an AI-powered “legislative failure finder” in a single afternoon to catch similar mistakes in draft bills. Using open parliamentary data and off-the-shelf AI tools, the prototype flagged the error immediately, went viral, and was soon being demoed on national television, prompting officials to fix additional issues in real time. The story offers a glimpse of how lightweight, civil-society-driven AI tools can strengthen legislative quality, public accountability, and state capacity without waiting for top-down reform.

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AI for Governance

AI and Democracy: Mapping the Intersections

Rachel George & Ian Klaus on January 8, 2026 in Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Carnegie California)

As global democracy reaches its lowest point in decades, this paper maps how AI is reshaping democratic systems across four core domains: elections and campaigns, citizen deliberation, government institutions and services, and social cohesion. The authors argue that today’s AI–democracy interventions are fragmented, often “boutique,” and frequently not labeled as democracy work, making scaling and institutionalization harder. By cataloguing risks, opportunities, and actor models, the paper offers a shared framework for policymakers, technologists, and civil society seeking to move from reactive guardrails toward durable, democracy-strengthening AI interventions.

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AI for Governance

Agencies Are Scaling AI by Turning to Experimentation

Ross Gianfortune on January 13, 2026 in GovCIO Media & Research

As federal agencies respond to new White House AI directives, leaders from State, EPA, and Labor describe a shift away from rigid rollouts toward experimentation, peer learning, and mission-driven use. From State Department “office hours” spanning global time zones to EPA’s grassroots AI ambassador program, agencies are emphasizing governance-first experimentation that fits real workflows. Speakers stressed that scaling AI depends less on mandates and more on shared use cases, workforce literacy, and enterprise-wide frameworks that prevent siloed deployments, offering a model for building public-sector AI capacity.

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AI and Public Engagement

Voices in Every Language: How India Is Building More Inclusive AI

Anirudh Dinesh on January 21, 2026 in Reboot Democracy

This article examines India’s Bhashini platform as a model for treating multilingual AI as public infrastructure rather than a market feature. Through open APIs, crowdsourced “language donations,” and publicly accessible datasets, Bhashini is enabling citizens to access digital services in the languages they actually speak, reshaping participation, rights access, and service delivery for underserved populations. The piece argues that democratic AI depends not on model power alone, but on who can understand, be understood by, and meaningfully engage with the systems meant to serve them.

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AI and Public Engagement

“You’ve Got Less than 30 Seconds”: How Public Servants Can Find the Words to Win Back Trust

Amedeo Bettauer on January 18, 2026 in Reboot Democracy

In a candid conversation with former New York Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson and former Member of Congress and psychologist Brian Baird, this InnovateUS Amplify workshop reframes public communication as an act of listening rather than persuasion. Drawing on hundreds of town halls and newsroom leadership, Baird and Abramson explore how public servants can respond to anger without escalation, explain complex policy without condescension, and rebuild trust amid what Baird calls an “epistemological crisis.” The takeaway is practical and human: credibility comes not from saying more, but from demonstrating service, empathy, and restraint.

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AI and Elections

Pro-AI Super PACs Are Already All In on the Midterms

Maxwell Zeff on January 21, 2026 in WIRED

This investigation traces how Silicon Valley’s fight over AI regulation has moved decisively into U.S. electoral politics. Major tech firms, venture capitalists, and AI executives are bankrolling new super PACs to oppose candidates backing state-level AI laws and to push for a single, industry-friendly federal framework. With tens of millions already committed, the article shows how campaign spending is becoming a parallel arena for AI governance, reshaping who sets the rules, constraining state experimentation, and testing whether public skepticism toward AI can outweigh concentrated political capital.

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