State AI rules could stifle innovation and opportunity for entrepreneurs.
The post David Casem: Florida AI rules risk crushing the next wave of American Innovation appeared first on Florida Politics – Campaigns & Elections. Lobbying & Government..
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Last week, I received a text message that will stick with me forever: “It doesn’t feel real yet. It hasn’t fully hit me. This feels like I have done something life-changing.”
It came from a man I met months ago in Hawaii, an Uber driver who has been working long shifts to make ends meet while dreaming of something more. During our ride, I showed him something simple: how OpenClaw, powered by artificial intelligence, could help him build his own website, market his brand, and launch his business — without a computer science degree, venture capital, or connections to Silicon Valley.
He did it. He built an AI-powered app that allows businesses to control access to locked spaces without diverting staff from their more pressing tasks. Now he texts me regularly, still marveling at what he has created.
That story is not unique. It is happening across America right now, in every state and every ZIP code. AI is quietly becoming the greatest opportunity equalizer this country has ever seen, a tool that is handing the keys to upward mobility to people who have never had access to them before. According to Second Talent’s 2026 industry research, 63% of vibe coding users are non-developers. That is exactly why I am alarmed by what is happening in Florida.
The Florida Senate recently passed an Artificial Intelligence Bill of Rights, a sweeping framework that threatens to stifle the very innovation that is lifting people like my Uber driver out of economic stagnation. The bill has the support of Gov. Ron DeSantis, and its fate now rests with the Florida House.
But the Sunshine State is not alone. It’s just the latest among those across the country — both red and blue — rushing to add to the regulatory minefield sprouting up around AI, as each state crafts its own patchwork of rules, restrictions, and requirements.
I understand the instinct. AI is powerful, and we need a national regulatory framework that addresses consumers’ concerns. However, what state policymakers like Gov. DeSantis are failing to account for is how their patchwork of regulations is crushing the profound, life-changing benefits that AI is already delivering to ordinary Americans. In DeSantis’ case, his own voters stand to lose the most.
When you regulate AI at the state level without a coherent national framework, you don’t make it safer; you make it messier. You create a 50-state obstacle that only the largest, best-resourced companies can navigate. Startups, small developers, and entrepreneurs get crushed under the compliance burden. Those harmed are not the tech giants; they’re the Uber drivers in Hawaii who are just starting to launch their own businesses.
Republicans, led by President Donald Trump, have made a masterful transition in recent years to become the party of the working class. GOP Governors engaging in AI patchwork politics threaten to undo that progress.
The next wave of AI builders will not come from Ivy League computer science programs; they will emerge from community colleges, kitchen tables, and the driver’s seat of an Uber. Findings from Gartner reveal that “low-code platforms promise to multiply existing developer productivity 3-5x and tap non-IT talent pools — 80% of low-code users will come from outside formal IT departments by 2026.” That is not disruption to fear; that is democratization in action. It is precisely the kind of leveling of the playing field that state regulators, in their rush to protect consumers from a nonexistent threat, are jeopardizing before it can fully materialize. A KPMG survey recently found that “92% of CEOs said they were planning to grow their headcounts, even as 69% were dedicating a large share of their budgets to AI deployment.”
This promise of AI is deeply and fundamentally American. Small-business owners are using AI to compete with corporations that once dwarfed them. First-generation college students are using AI to access tutoring and academic support that was once reserved for the wealthy. Companies like mine, Telnyx, are developing new products at warp speed to help us compete with the industry’s biggest AI companies. This is not a story about robots and algorithms; it is a story about real people achieving the American dream by gaining access to tools that were once available only to a privileged few.
State-by-state regulatory patchwork does not protect those people; it cuts them off.
That is why a national AI standard is not just good policy; it is morally and logistically imperative. Trump has pushed, through an executive order, for a strong commitment to establishing a unified federal approach to AI governance — one that allows innovation to flourish while providing clear, consistent guardrails.
The Trump Administration is right, and states should rally behind the President’s leadership to establish a national AI framework instead of crafting their own web of complex regulatory hurdles for the next generation of AI leaders.
We need one smart framework that protects consumers without punishing innovators and without closing the door on those who are just now finding their way in.
The man in that Uber in Hawaii did not need a government agency to approve his dream; he needed access to a tool powerful enough to help him build it. Let’s not take that tool away.
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David Casem is the CEO and co-founder of Telnyx.
The post David Casem: Florida AI rules risk crushing the next wave of American Innovation appeared first on Florida Politics – Campaigns & Elections. Lobbying & Government..
