VirginiaAI regulation

Regulation Status

• Virginia does not have a comprehensive AI statute, and its most significant attempt at one failed: in March 2025 Governor Glenn Youngkin vetoed the High-Risk Artificial Intelligence Developer and Deployer Act (HB 2094), which would have imposed EU-style risk-based obligations on developers and deployers of high-risk AI systems making consequential decisions. Instead, Virginia regulates AI through discrete amendments to existing law. It was an early mover on synthetic sexual imagery, with HB 2678 expanding the unlawful dissemination of images statute to reach digitally created or modified depictions of a recognizable actual person.
• Virginia's other AI-relevant measures are sector-specific. Va. Code Ann. § 32.1-127 requires hospitals, nursing homes, and certified nursing facilities to adopt policies governing patient use of intelligent personal assistants; the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (Va. Code Ann. § 59.1-577) grants a right to opt out of profiling by automated processing that produces legal or similarly significant effects, with heightened protections for children's data, required data protection assessments, and civil penalties up to $7,500 per violation; and SB 731 clarified that the CSAM definition covers computer-generated images of minors that do not actually exist.
• Virginia enacted Code of Virginia § 19.2-11.14, requiring that criminal-justice decisions on detention, prosecution, sentencing, parole, and related matters be made by a human decision-maker even where AI tools generate recommendations, subject to legal challenge. Virginia's SB 394 addresses AI use and safety in instructional settings, directing the Department of Education to compile information and issue guidance on safe, ethical, and equitable AI use, requiring school board policies aligned with that guidance, and establishing an AIS Innovation in Education Pilot Program.