Californians want AI legislation, but Big Tech is spending to push its own interests

Will AI revolutionize the way we live and work and usher in a new age of prosperity? Or doom us all to oblivion? The news is filled with these polarizing narratives, mostly coming from Big Tech CEOs and investors. 

California leadership is hearing these narratives—some are even receiving campaign funding from their originators—and making decisions accordingly. After all, these are the “experts.”

But democracies are supposed to reflect the sentiments of everyday people, and AI has become a top-tier economic and safety concern for California voters—and a pivotal issue in the 2026 elections. 

Last year, we surveyed over 1,400 California adults and conducted focus groups to find out how Californians felt about AI. This year, we did another survey and followed up on our focus groups. In partnership with Diffusion.au, we detailed the results, what they could mean for California leadership, and how industry is still trying to keep its horse in the race in our memo, “The Political Dynamics Of AI In California: How Public Opinion and Corporate Lobbying Are Shaping the Debate About Regulating AI?” These were the main takeaways.

Everyday Californians see AI more as a threat than an opportunity

“Privacy” means protection from harm: Overwhelmingly, Californians say they want “privacy” when it comes to AI. But when voters say “privacy,” they’re not thinking abstractly about data rights. They mean concrete harms: being charged more for the same product based on their personal data, having their face or voice faked in a video, being passed over for a job because of a biased algorithm, or being watched by their employer. Support for privacy protections polls at nearly 90%, with 64% worried about AI-generated deepfakes specifically—a concern that runs especially high among women over 50.

AI is now a cost-of-living and job-security issue: While doomsday scenarios like bioweapons or AI-controlled weapons generate fear, the issue that actually drives voters is economic. More than half of Californians are worried AI will eliminate lower-wage jobs (51%) and drive wages down (54%). Notably, messaging that promises to “retrain workers for the AI future” tends to backfire—voters hear it as confirmation that layoffs are coming. Messaging that holds companies accountable if they automate without giving back to their communities performs much better, especially with Latino voters.

“Built for them, used on us” is the dominant mood: The most politically powerful finding in the research is a deep, bipartisan sense that AI is being built for the wealthy and powerful—not for ordinary people. 59% say AI will mostly benefit wealthy households and corporations. 54% believe it will increase inequality. This resentment cuts across party lines: it’s just as strong among Republicans in the Inland Empire as among progressives in Los Angeles. The “working families vs. Silicon Valley” frame has genuine crossover appeal because it reflects how voters across the political spectrum actually feel.

Voters want leaders who aren’t “bought”: Voters don’t distrust the government on AI because they think lawmakers lack technical know-how. They distrust it because they think politicians are too close to the industry. Focus groups were full of comments like: “Are their campaigns funded by these companies?” and “You can’t serve two masters.” Only 35% trust California’s government to control AI. Voters want leaders who consult independent experts (not company lobbyists), ban policymakers from holding stock in AI companies, impose real penalties for harmful behavior, and publicly report on AI’s economic and environmental impacts.

Watch the recording on YouTube

AI attitudes are split across California

Young men and older women see different futures

Gender is the single strongest predictor of AI attitudes in the data. Among voters under 50, men are 44 points more positive about AI than women. When you break it down further by education and age, college-educated men under 50 tend to be more excited about AI than non-college-educated women over 50. These two groups respond to very different messages. Younger voters engage with economic opportunity; older voters, especially women, want reassurance and protection. Since older women also turn out to vote at high rates, they are a politically decisive constituency on this issue.

Those who’ve faced bias see it coming again

Black and Latino voters, who have more direct experience with discrimination, are more alert to AI’s potential to replicate those patterns. Black voters show the strongest overall support for civil rights protections in AI (82% favor new regulation) and are more confident than most in state government’s ability to act. Latino voters feel a sharper sense of economic urgency: they are more likely than average to believe AI will eliminate lower-wage work, cut wages, and make discrimination worse. Asian American voters are the most familiar with AI tools—70% have used large AI systems—and broadly support regulation, though with less intensity than other communities of color.

The Bay Area knows tech; the Inland Empire fears it

Bay Area voters are the most AI-literate (77% familiar) but also among the most skeptical of the industry itself—only 23% view Silicon Valley executives favorably. They’ve watched tech’s promises up close and want accountability alongside innovation. In LA, the Inland Empire, and the Central Valley, AI is seen as a direct threat to jobs in entertainment, services, and logistics; voters there want strong rules with real consequences. Sacramento is the outlier, with lower support for regulation, likely reflecting a deeper cynicism that new laws alone won’t change much.

Industry is working to shape the AI debate

The scale of Big Tech’s influence

Between early 2023 and mid-2025, major tech companies and their trade groups reported $57.6 million in lobbying spending in California—with Google alone accounting for $14.3 million of that. Spending spiked sharply in mid-2024 when key AI legislation was being debated, and has stayed elevated since. A notable feature of this spending is how much flows through trade associations, which lobby on behalf of multiple companies while shielding individual firms from direct scrutiny.

The industry is also moving into direct electoral spending. A new super PAC network launched in 2025 with over $125 million in funding—backed by major AI investors— is explicitly targeting California and three other states. Meta has separately committed at least $65 million to support candidates who oppose new AI restrictions, regardless of party. This level of spending vastly outpaces anything available to consumer groups, labor unions, or public-interest organizations working on AI policy.

The policy process: bad faith at scale

Interviews with legislators and advocates describe a consistent pattern: tech lobbyists appear cooperative on the surface but are obstructive in practice. Common tactics include flooding hearings and private meetings with the same talking points to create a false impression of broad expert consensus; having senior executives call legislators directly to apply pressure; and raising last-minute objections to legislation when there is no time left to address them, causing bills to stall without industry ever appearing to oppose reform outright.

A favorite rhetorical move is to attack any proposed rule as simultaneously “too broad” and “too specific”—a trap that puts the burden on lawmakers to write perfect legislation while the industry faces no equivalent standard. Companies also invoke the threat of leaving California or cutting jobs if regulations pass, even though the state’s concentration of talent and investment makes a mass departure unlikely. The long game is federal preemption: generate a “patchwork” of state laws, complain that the patchwork is unworkable, then lobby Congress for weak national rules that block any of the state laws from implementation.

The narrative environment: shaping how people think

Beyond lobbying, the industry works to control how AI is talked about. Research analyzing over 300,000 words of AI policy discussion found that industry voices use a narrower, more consistent set of frames than academics, journalists, or civil society groups—a pattern that appears to be a strategy, not a coincidence.

The dominant frame is the “race”: AI development is described as a competition the U.S. must win, in which slowing down means losing. This framing is powerful because it makes regulation feel like self-sabotage, treats the outcome as inevitable rather than a choice, and positions critics as naive or anti-progress. A contrasting “building” frame—AI as infrastructure that requires standards, inspections, and liability when it fails—leads to a very different conversation about who is responsible when things go wrong. The absence of that frame from mainstream AI coverage is not accidental.

A related habit is treating AI as if it acts on its own: “AI is taking your job,” “AI is transforming healthcare.” When the technology is the subject of the sentence, the people making decisions—executives, engineers, investors—disappear from view. Naming those actors is a prerequisite for holding them accountable.

Plotting a path forward

The industry’s advantages are real, but they are not insurmountable. Three fundamentals still favor determined leadership:

• Public opinion is working against the industry, not for it. Californians are skeptical of tech companies and their motives. The industry is spending to change that—it hasn’t succeeded yet.
• The “race” story is fragile. It depends on people believing that the prize is worth wanting. When 59% of voters think AI will mostly benefit the wealthy, the promise of the race collapses. Reframing AI as infrastructure— something to be built carefully, with standards and consequences—shifts what “responsible” leadership looks like.
• The industry’s procedural tactics depend on staying invisible. Once voters understand that “patchwork” complaints are a manufactured step toward weak federal rules, or that last-minute objections are a deliberate delay tactic, those moves lose their power. Transparency is itself a form of defense.

The path forward isn’t about matching the industry dollar-for-dollar. It’s about being clear about what is at stake, naming the people making the decisions, and putting forward an AI agenda that serves working Californians—not just those at the top.

That’s why we, in partnership with Diffusion.au, authored “The Political Dynamics Of AI In California: How Public Opinion and Corporate Lobbying Are Shaping the Debate About Regulating AI?”—a memo outlining ways California leaders can take the reins to steer us toward a more equitable economy as we move into the age of AI. This memo is part of TechEquity’s California’s AI Future series, which includes three other memos addressing the political dynamics of AI in California, the impact of AI on labor, and an alternative vision for California’s tech economy.

How has AI impacted your life? When you share your story, California leaders have more information and are more emboldened to stand up for everyday Californians.