An AI Agenda for
California's Next Leaders

Leadership for a People-First Economy

About the project

California's next generation of leaders will take office as AI reshapes the state's economy, labour market, and daily life. To help inform them and the public, TechEquity Collaborative brought together four organisations to produce a set of policy memos that ask what it would actually mean for AI to work for people rather than against them.

Published in April 2026, California's AI Future covers the question from four angles. Where do voters stand, and what is the tech industry doing to shape the debate? How are AI tools being used to exploit workers? What is algorithmic pricing doing to the cost of living? And what would a genuinely competitive tech economy look like?

Together, the memos lay out a policy agenda that ties public opinion research and investigative analysis to specific reforms across labour, affordability, and market competition.

Read the memos on TechEquity.us →
California's AI Future report cover

The memos

  1. The Political Dynamics of AI in California

    Statewide polling and focus groups on where Californian voters stand on AI, paired with new research into the lobbying, electoral spending, and narrative strategies the tech industry is using to shape AI policy in Sacramento. Based on interviews with legislators and advocates, a review of lobbying filings and campaign finance records, and analysis of corporate strategy documents.

    Diffusion × TechEquity

  2. AI & California's Labor Market

    How AI tools are being used to set wages artificially low, surveil workers, and make biased hiring and firing decisions across industries. Includes a policy framework for protecting workers from AI-driven displacement.

    TechEquity

  3. AI & Affordability in California

    How algorithmic rent-fixing, data centre energy costs, and surveillance pricing are pushing up the cost of living for California families, and the policy responses that could rein them in.

    Economic Security California × TechEquity

  4. Beyond Big Tech

    An alternative vision for California's tech economy. Pro-competition reforms to break the stranglehold a handful of firms have on the AI market, and public investments to back a more distributed innovation ecosystem.

    AI Now × TechEquity

Diffusion's contribution

Public opinion research

A representative statewide survey and focus groups mapping Californian attitudes toward AI: where support for regulation runs strongest, what voters actually mean when they talk about "privacy," and why AI has become a bread-and-butter economic issue. The research uses the same segmentation approach as our UK and California AI Compass studies.

Industry influence in Sacramento

New research on the tech industry's campaign to control the terms of California's AI debate. Based on interviews with legislators, advocates, and former industry insiders, alongside a review of lobbying filings, campaign finance records, and corporate strategy documents. It tracks how the industry operates through legislative lobbying, narrative framing, electoral spending, and the mechanics of the policy process itself.

Read the full memo series

All four memos, the overview document, and TechEquity's AI policy principles are available on the project homepage.

Explore on TechEquity.us → Opens on TechEquity Collaborative's website

A collaboration between