SPRINGFIELD — The Illinois Senate passed SB 315 by a vote of 52-5 on Thursday, following the Illinois House of Representatives’ unanimous 110-0 approval on Wednesday. The bill would require frontier AI companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic to implement comprehensive safety plans, undergo annual third-party audits, and establish whistleblower protections.

SB 315 mandates that covered companies create, publish, and annually update plans addressing severe or catastrophic risks from their AI systems. It also creates civil penalties for violations and would take effect January 1 if signed into law. The Illinois Legislature has 30 days to send the bill to Governor JB Pritzker, who has indicated he will sign it.

“Illinois is leading the nation in holding Big Tech accountable. I look forward to signing SB 315 and working with the legislature so that AI, when used, is used responsibly,” Pritzker said.

Democratic Rep. Daniel Didech, the bill’s House sponsor, said artificial intelligence technology is among the most significant innovations, in his opinion, in the history of humanity. “It’ll make people healthier, it’ll improve quality of life, it’ll increase productivity. But the flip side of that is these tools are so powerful that there’s also some potential risk,” he said. “This piece of legislation is designed to put up some guardrails and make sure we have some safeguards in place to protect against some of the worst catastrophic risks.”

Didech also acknowledged that federal regulation would be preferable but said states must act given congressional inaction. “The best way to regulate these types of catastrophic risks would be a federal approach,” he said. “The reality is that Congress has not taken up this issue yet, and the technology is developing at such a rapid pace that states have had no choice but to step in.”

Cesar Fernandez, Anthropic’s head of state and local government relations, said, “With strong bipartisan support, Illinois is on track to become the first state to require independent, third-party audits of large frontier AI developers’ safety practices.” He added, “SB 315 takes the safety practices leading labs already follow voluntarily — publishing a safety framework, transparent reporting, protecting whistleblowers — and helps establish a baseline that every leading AI developer is expected to meet.”

OpenAI and Anthropic have publicly supported SB 315, while a trade organization representing other AI companies has opposed it. Google, xAI, and Meta did not reply to requests for comment. The White House has opposed provisions similar to those in SB 315, arguing they could burden the U.S. AI industry with inconsistent state regulations.