New York Opens RAISE Act Registration for Big AI Developers Ahead of January Deadline

New York has opened the registration portal for its new artificial intelligence safety law, putting the biggest AI companies in the country on a short clock. Governor Kathy Hochul announced on November 10, 2026 that large frontier AI developers must now register with the state under the Responsible AI Safety and Education Act, known as the RAISE Act. The deadline to file is January 1, 2027, the same day the law takes effect.

The move makes New York the first state to run a formal registration system for the companies building the most powerful AI models. OpenAI and Anthropic, the makers of ChatGPT and Claude, are among the companies expected to be covered. The state says the point is simple: before the law starts biting, officials want a clear list of who is training advanced systems and operating them in New York.

What the RAISE Act requires

The RAISE Act was signed into law in December 2025 and amended in March 2026 to bring it closer to California's AI framework laws. It targets developers that train frontier models using more than 10 to the 26th power operations, a threshold that captures only the largest training runs in the industry. A company falls within scope when it, together with its affiliates, had more than 500 million dollars in annual gross revenue in the preceding calendar year.

Covered developers must register with the state's new Office of Digital Innovation, Governance, Integrity, and Trust, known as DIGIT, which sits inside the Department of Financial Services. Registration is only the first step. From January, covered developers must publish safety frameworks on their websites, report critical safety incidents to the state within 72 hours, and publish model transparency reports. The 72-hour incident window is the most demanding piece of the law, since it forces fast internal reporting of serious problems.

Registration filings must identify business names and addresses, three regulatory contacts, and specified beneficial owners. The state plans to publish a list of registrants, without their regulatory contact details.

Penalties and enforcement

New York can impose civil penalties of up to 1 million dollars for a single violation of the law, and up to 3 million dollars for later violations. The Department of Financial Services will assess developers on a pro rata basis to cover the direct and indirect costs of administering the act, so the regulated companies will fund the oversight program themselves.

The penalties are real but the state has framed the law as a disclosure regime rather than a ban. It does not tell companies what they can build. It tells them they must say what they are building, how they are testing it, and what goes wrong. That distinction matters, because it is also what separates the RAISE Act from the more aggressive proposals that have surfaced in Washington and in other state capitals.

Hochul has been blunt about the politics behind the law. At a briefing on Tuesday, she said that tech leaders tell the public their vision for AI is inevitable, and that the state disagrees. The message is that New York will set terms for how powerful systems operate inside its borders, rather than waiting for the companies to set them.

A new testing center at Binghamton

Alongside the registration portal, Hochul launched the New York Center for AI Responsibility and Research at the State University of New York's Binghamton University. The center is described as a first-of-its-kind statewide effort on AI science and safety, and it will independently test advanced AI systems for safety and security.

At the state's request, the center can provide expertise, assessments, and evidence to inform policy and oversight of frontier AI developers. It will work with DIGIT to begin reviewing developers' published safety frameworks and suggest ways to strengthen the requirements.

Why this matters beyond New York

The RAISE Act lands at a moment when AI regulation in the United States is being written state by state, with no federal statute setting a competing framework. California already has its own AI transparency and safety laws, and other states are watching New York's rollout closely. If the registration system works smoothly, it could become a template. If it creates friction, it will become a warning.

The timing is also tied to a bruising week for the AI industry. The November 2026 midterm elections saw voters in dozens of local jurisdictions back restrictions on new data centers, and AI stocks fell sharply on fears of tougher rules. OpenAI responded the same week with a National Community Compact, promising to pay the full cost of electricity and infrastructure at future campuses it owns and to stop using non-disclosure agreements with public officials.

For the big labs, the practical question now is compliance. January 1, 2027 is less than two months away. Registration is the easy part, a filing with names, addresses, and contacts. The harder work is building the internal systems to publish credible safety frameworks and to report serious incidents within 72 hours.

Smaller developers are mostly untouched. A startup training modest models or building apps on top of someone else's model does not meet the revenue or compute thresholds, so the law leaves it alone. That was a deliberate choice by the drafters, who wanted to aim at the handful of companies whose systems carry the widest risks.

The next milestone is the registration deadline itself. Once DIGIT publishes its list of registrants, the public will see for the first time exactly which companies New York considers frontier developers.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the New York RAISE Act?

The RAISE Act is the Responsible AI Safety and Education Act, a New York state law signed in December 2025 and amended in March 2026. It requires large developers of frontier AI models to register with the state, publish safety frameworks, report critical safety incidents within 72 hours, and publish model transparency reports.

Which companies must register under the RAISE Act?

Developers that train frontier models using more than 10 to the 26th power operations and that, together with their affiliates, had more than 500 million dollars in annual gross revenue in the preceding calendar year. OpenAI and Anthropic are among the companies expected to be covered.

When is the RAISE Act registration deadline?

Registration is open now and filings are due by January 1, 2027, when the law's central provisions take effect. Developers register with the Office of Digital Innovation, Governance, Integrity, and Trust, known as DIGIT, inside the Department of Financial Services.