While a surge in Presidential Executive Orders and ongoing budget negotiations have slowed action in Congress, state lawmakers have quietly accelerated their pace, introducing a record number of new bills across the country.
When the federal government makes cuts or changes, the effects ripple down to citizens in many forms. In response, state legislatures often face tough decisions about where to step in and fill the gaps. As a result, understanding and influencing state-level policymaking has never been more important.
Each state operates on its own timeline, with unique legislative processes, terminology, and priorities. Navigating these local complexities, while recognizing their national and even global implications, requires a holistic and informed approach.
For example, this year, more than 300 bills were filed on the day of the Senate bill filing deadline in North Carolina alone. These amounted to nearly 1 million words of new legislation in a single day – the equivalent of three New Oxford American Dictionaries!
With this much information working its way through the halls of power, it’s clear there is a major opportunity in advocacy: while many government affairs professionals are advocating for AI-related regulations, far fewer are actually leveraging AI to help them do their best work.
Other data-intensive sectors, such as healthcare, insurance, and the legal industry, have seen steady uptake of AI tools and machine learning programs that can help speed up time-consuming data analysis. Meanwhile, the National Institute for Lobbying & Ethics just this year released a set of recommendations for how AI can be used in lobbying campaigns.
This suggests an industry that has been underserved by technology. And for government affairs professionals, staying ahead of the curve means the difference between success and failure for them and their clients.
With this in mind, how can AI prove itself useful in policy, advocacy, and lobbying?
The Advantages
Delivering timely, trusted legislative knowledge is critical for any successful lobbyist; their clients depend on them to provide up-to-date information on how their interests are being represented. With the volume and pace of modern state legislation, relying on legacy tools and processes is no longer acceptable. To help lobbyists get instant, personalized, and contextual insights in a time when information is proliferating like wildfire, AI offers:
Speed: The pace of legislation is only accelerating. There is no way to pinpoint the exact number of laws in the U.S. because the number is always in flux. Individual states vary in volume, often averaging multiple new bills introduced each day, and with 50 states each running their own legislative processes, the complexity and activity are staggering.
Legislative language also evolves constantly, as amendments are added on the fly, various committees make edits and additions, and discrete provisions may move from one bill to another. One missed action could be a vital missed opportunity to get the first word with a legislator.
Because AI can be trained to provide instant alerts about relevant activity, it can be a lobbyist’s eyes and ears at the legislature, ensuring that they can act first on any legislative action relevant to their clients.
Scale: Monitoring bills, amendments, and committee actions in real time is becoming increasingly difficult for lobbyists and government affairs teams. But AI can help them do what they can’t do alone. Generative AI is increasingly able to not just note changes but also interpret concepts and analyze language.
Bills can change quickly, but it takes time to process, organize, and analyze the huge amount of data produced daily by state legislatures. Lobbyists are masters at keeping track of nuances and intent. Their human intuition and expertise are irreplaceable, but the right AI tool can serve as a valuable assistant to save time and surface insights at a speed and scale beyond human capacity alone.
Insights: According to a recent study, analysts estimate that the global productivity value of generative AI will be $1.75 trillion annually across national, state, provincial, and local governments going forward. Why shouldn’t lobbyists capture similar productivity gains?
Machines can handle repetitive tasks on an ongoing basis, whereas fatigue and exhaustion are natural limits for human beings. Increasingly, LLMs can scour massive datasets for subtle changes in meaning, giving lobbyists a superpower that works at scale.
Lobbyists benefit from spending more time on what they do best: building relationships, formulating strategies, influencing stakeholders, and having the right conversations at the right time. But combing through mountains of legislative language just to determine what’s relevant can take time away from those critical tasks.
The right, trusted AI platform can enable every lobbyist to stay ahead of changes and perform at the top of their game and help drive the outcomes of tomorrow.
More about the author
Paul Rava is the Co-Founder and CEO of Roboro, with over 15 years of experience building and scaling innovative B2B and B2C ventures. A seasoned entrepreneur and former CFO, Paul has led high-growth companies across Silicon Valley, specializing in transforming early momentum into sustainable market leadership. He is passionate about driving operational excellence and building teams that thrive under pressure.
