California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sept. 18, 2026, signed Executive Order N-9-26, which speeds up the state's new system of independent AI auditors and orders recommendations on tougher steps, including a kill switch, a verified way to shut down the most advanced AI models. Much of the frontier AI industry is based in California: the companies building the most capable AI models, ones that match or beat the best that exist today. That gives the order weight in how those companies will be checked in the near term, even though a kill switch and onsite auditors would still need new laws.
The order is aimed at state agencies, not at companies. It creates no rights that anyone can enforce in court, and it does not require any company to install a kill switch today. Instead, it speeds up work under two existing laws, SB 813 and AB 1405, and asks the Government Operations Agency, working with the Governor's Office of Emergency Services and national experts, to study whether state law should change.
By May 1, 2027, the agency must develop and publicly post the application requirements and criteria for verification organizations, the independent groups that check AI systems for compliance with state law, as Government Code section 8898.1 requires. The law's original deadline was Jan. 1, 2028. By Dec. 1, 2027, the agency must also finish the auditor-registry work required by section 11549.82(a) and begin the actions in part (b), ahead of an original deadline of Jan. 1, 2029.
The recommendations, due Nov. 16, 2026, must address whether to require large frontier developers to host verification organizations inside their labs, and whether independent groups should check the safety frameworks, transparency reports and risk assessments those companies already file. They must also address a verified kill switch for frontier models, and whether the critical safety incidents companies must report should include a range of loss-of-control events.
Nine days before the order, Newsom signed the two laws whose timelines it speeds up, SB 813 and AB 1405. According to a news report, the Nov. 16 recommendations could feed a special legislative session. The same report noted that Newsom vetoed SB 1047 in 2024, a bill that included kill-switch-style and third-party audit ideas.
Nobody yet knows what the agency will recommend, or whether lawmakers will then rewrite the state's AI safety law. How the biggest AI developers would respond if onsite auditors or a verified kill switch move from study into law is also unclear.