Illinois Passes SB 315: Third-Party Audits Required for Frontier AI Labs

Illinois lawmakers just passed SB 315, a bill that requires frontier AI labs—OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind—to have their safety practices audited by a third party. Governor Pritzker plans to sign it. This would make Illinois the state with the strongest AI safety law in the US, going beyond California and New York.

How it works

SB 315 mandates that AI labs hire independent auditors to verify adherence to the lab's own safety commitments. Previously, no independent body was required—Scott Wisor of Secure AI Project describes it as "companies grading their own homework." The auditors can be from the Big Four (Deloitte, EY, KPMG, PwC) or members of the AI Evaluator Forum (METR, Transluce, Averi). The bill does not prescribe specific safety standards; rather, it enforces accountability for whatever commitments the lab publicly makes.

Industry response

OpenAI's chief of global affairs Chris Lehane called it a "thoughtful framework" and noted the company's AI policy now focuses on passing similar state laws. Anthropic claims it was the first lab to support SB 315, thanking lawmakers for setting a "baseline that every leading AI developer is expected to meet." However, trade group Chamber of Progress (backed by Google, Apple, Amazon, a16z) opposes the bill, arguing it "would force companies to expose sensitive systems to untested auditors in a regulatory regime that’s all liability and no standards."

Broader context

With no federal AI safety law in place, states are stepping up. California and NY currently require reporting on guardrails and safety incidents, but Illinois adds the independent audit requirement. Notably, OpenAI previously supported a different Illinois bill that included a liability shield for catastrophic harm—Lehane later called that support an "oversight" and the company now backs SB 315 instead.