On September 22, 2026, Governor Wes Moore announced a statewide artificial intelligence framework (the “Framework”) focused on protecting Maryland residents, supporting workers, and keeping children safe. The Framework combines existing state initiatives and recently enacted protections with a forward-looking agenda for legislation and agency guidance. It is particularly relevant to AI developers and to organizations using AI in employment, housing, lending, insurance, health care, pricing, online services, and education.
The announcement itself does not create new requirements for private businesses, and several initiatives will require legislation or further agency action. However, the Framework also highlights existing Maryland laws and regulatory positions that already affect businesses, including requirements concerning consumer privacy, personalized pricing, health-coverage decisions, insurance uses of AI, children’s online privacy, deepfakes, and identity fraud. Businesses should therefore distinguish between newly announced policy proposals and existing obligations that may already apply.
Existing Laws Regulating AI in Maryland
The Framework points to several existing compliance obligations. For example, the Maryland Online Data Privacy Act restricts the collection and sale of personal data and gives consumers rights concerning profiling. The Protection from Predatory Pricing Act restricts certain food retailers and third-party delivery services from using personal data to set higher individualized prices. In health care, HB 820 requires specified coverage decisions to be based on a patient’s medical history and subject to a qualified physician’s final review. Maryland Insurance Administration Bulletin 24-11 states that insurers’ uses of AI in underwriting, pricing, claims handling, and fraud detection remain subject to existing unfair-trade-practice and anti-discrimination requirements and directs carriers to maintain written AI governance programs with testing, controls, and human oversight.
Key Areas to Watch
- AI decisions in employment, housing, and lending. Maryland plans to issue guidance explaining how existing laws apply to AI-driven decisions in these sectors. The administration also intends to address discriminatory tenant-screening tools in properties receiving state rental housing financing. Employers should watch for guidance on bias, human oversight, and the use of AI in consequential personnel decisions.
- Workplace monitoring and automated decisions. The administration will work with lawmakers and stakeholders on protections concerning AI-assisted termination and discipline, social scoring, surveillance that interferes with worker organizing, and certain uses of biometric identification. Those broader private-sector restrictions remain proposals.
- Children’s privacy, chatbots, and online design. Maryland intends to pursue safeguards for chatbots used by minors, including proposed crisis-response protocols for conversations indicating mental health distress and in-session warnings for users under 16. It also plans to examine AI-driven features that may encourage harmful engagement by children, such as personalized feeds, autoplay, and late-night notifications. These proposals build on Maryland’s existing children’s online safety initiatives.
- Frontier AI developers and digital likenesses. Maryland’s AI Subcabinet will develop legislative recommendations addressing frontier model safety testing, independent evaluations, public reporting, whistleblower protections, and incident reporting. The administration also proposes a statutory right of publicity addressing the unauthorized use of a person’s likeness, including AI-generated replicas. Under current Maryland law, an individual whose likeness is cloned must prove harm; the proposed bill would establish ownership from the outset. The scope and obligations of either measure will depend on future legislation.
What Businesses Should Do Now
Companies operating in Maryland should inventory where they develop, procure, or use AI in decisions about individuals, including employment, housing, lending, insurance, health care, pricing, and customer interactions. They should determine which existing Maryland privacy, consumer-protection, civil-rights, insurance, and sector-specific requirements apply; document human-review, bias-testing, vendor-oversight, and escalation controls; and assess whether contracts provide sufficient information and audit rights for third-party systems. Food retailers and delivery services should review personalized-pricing practices, while businesses offering services to children should evaluate chatbot behavior, escalation procedures, data practices, age assurance, and engagement features. Companies should separately monitor forthcoming agency guidance and legislative proposals.
Maryland’s announcement is a useful prompt to check whether existing AI governance practices account for privacy, discrimination, and consumer protection risks across the full life cycle of a tool, including systems supplied by vendors.
The CommLaw Group Can Help
The CommLaw Group’s VisionAI+ Law Group advises businesses on AI governance, privacy, and regulatory compliance. For assistance assessing AI systems or tracking Maryland’s proposed measures, please contact:
Brian Alexander, Of Counsel
(703) 791-1050 | bal@commlawgroup.com
Diana James, Senior Associate
(703) 663-6757 | daj@commlawgroup.com