TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Gov. Ron DeSantis has fought Big Tech before. But his latest battle against artificial intelligence puts him at odds with a rapidly growing industry — and the leader of his party.
As President Donald Trump and top Republicans in Washington push hard to give companies wide latitude, DeSantis has emerged as a leading AI skeptic. He wants to spend his last year as Florida governor beating back the advancement of artificial intelligence, even as it creeps into more facets of everyday life.
“Let’s not try to act like some type of fake videos or fake songs are going to deliver us to some kind of utopia,” the governor said Dec. 18 during an event in Sebring.
Unlike many of DeSantis’ high-profile fights, his opposition to AI has little to do with cultural grievances or “woke” ideology — and far more to do with economic disruption, labor displacement and the scale of the technology itself.
He notably has taken aim at data centers sprouting up across the country by attempting to slow their growth in Florida, siding with local communities opposing the massive developments. And DeSantis frequently raises fears of how AI could ultimately upend the economy by displacing countless workers. The Republican rails against what he calls the “mindless slop” AI creates and warns deepfakes and manipulation could pose “a potential existential crisis for self-government.”
“The idea of this transhumanist strain, that somehow this is going to supplant humans and this other stuff, we have to reject that with every fiber of our being,” DeSantis said Dec. 15 during an AI event in Jupiter. “We as individual human beings are the ones that were endowed by God with certain inalienable rights. That's what our country was founded upon — they did not endow machines or these computers for this.”
The standoff places DeSantis on a collision course not only with tech companies, but with Trump’s effort to position himself as the party’s chief arbiter of AI policy.
While the president has embraced the technology as a strategic and economic imperative to be managed at the federal level, DeSantis is arguing unchecked growth — particularly data centers and automation — threatens workers, communities and democratic norms. The divide exposes a deeper tension in the GOP over whether AI should be accelerated, constrained or fundamentally rethought.
‘I’m not concerned’
Florida in 2026 is poised to join many other states considering new AI policies and attempting to implement guardrails. For the term-limited DeSantis, passing AI protections is a top priority heading into his final regular legislative session as governor starting in January.
DeSantis introduced a slate of recommendations for Florida lawmakers, calling on them to require companies to notify consumers when they are interacting with AI, prohibit the use of therapy or mental health counseling through AI and give parents more controls over how their children use the technology. At the same time, DeSantis wants to restrict the growth of data centers that fuel AI efforts by stopping any state subsidies to tech companies and curbing such facilities from drying up local water resources.
But the governor’s “bill of rights” and other AI ideas still must pass the Legislature and could face opposition from Big Tech companies. The state House laid the groundwork for pursuing new laws by holding more than a dozen AI hearings in December, during which lawmakers spoke of striking the balance between installing safeguards and allowing continued industry growth.
Florida, according to Michael Strain, the director of Economic Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, should “not try to slow down the development” of AI as it considers legislation.
“This is a global wave of technological advancement,” Strain, an economist who is working with OpenAI, told Florida House members during a Dec. 9 hearing. “And I think no state or even a country will be making its citizens better off by trying to micromanage the rollout of the development of the technology.”
Trump’s executive order looms large over Florida, where a Republican supermajority Legislature has been in lockstep with the president’s agenda on issues like immigration enforcement and even renaming the Gulf of America.
Trump is threatening to sic federal government lawyers on states that pass “onerous AI laws” as he seeks “global AI dominance through a minimally burdensome national policy framework.” This could entail suing state leaders over laws that the Trump administration believes are unconstitutionally regulating interstate commerce or requiring AI models to alter their truthful outputs.
While the move introduces some uncertainty over how states can legislate AI, DeSantis is confident his proposals will stay off the federal government’s radar. Trump’s order notes that states can consider policies including child safety protections and how state governments use AI — issues Florida could legislate.
“I'm not concerned about the recent executive order because it doesn't apply against the states directly,” DeSantis said Dec. 15. “And I don't think we're going to be doing anything that would even give rise to a dormant Commerce Clause lawsuit from U.S. DOJ. But to the extent we did, I'm confident that we'd be able to win that because, clearly, we'd be legislating within the confines of our 10th Amendment rights as states.”
Data centers take center stage
One of the more notable AI issues to watch in 2026 is how Florida responds to the nationwide data center boom.
So far, Florida hasn’t seen a large-scale data center like Georgia and Louisiana have — but there are at least two major projects in development with big money at stake. Local officials recently put a 202-acre data center proposed in Palm Beach County on hold as they await potential action by the Legislature, illustrating how critical the 2026 session will be for the industry.
The lifeblood of the growing artificial intelligence economy, data centers are seeing recent heavy opposition among communities and voters, a shift tech companies that depend on them are spending millions to counteract. Residents fear the large undertakings will bring pollution and utility rate hikes, all while producing noise and draining key water resources.
“To say data centers are unpopular right now is probably an understatement, to say the least,” Dan Diorio, VP of state policy for Data Center Coalition, a Northern Virginia-based group that counts AWS, Google, Meta and Oracle as members, told Florida House members during a Dec. 9 hearing.
The tech industry, in the face of this pushback, is touting data centers as job creators and economic drivers.
And Florida, according to Diorio, has competitive advantages, such as access to water, land and clean energy, that make it an attractive option for companies seeking to expand.
“Florida should certainly position itself to continue to be a competitive marketplace and attract data center development,” Diorio told state lawmakers.
DeSantis, though, isn’t sold. He recently remarked that Louisiana built a facility the “size of Manhattan” and questioned if Floridians would want to see something similar. His stance aligns with residents like the ranchers in St. Lucie County who are fighting the prospect of a $13.5 billion hyperscale data center near their agriculture land.
The governor’s data center proposal goes as far as calling for the state to perform sound reviews to guard against noise pollution.
“Even Palm Beach took it down 7 [to] nothing because it takes a lot of power,” DeSantis said on Dec. 18, noting the county commission’s unanimous vote to postpone development on a data center dubbed “Project Tango.”
“One of these hyperscale centers is like a city of a half a million people just sucking off the electric grid. And so, you think to yourself, as just a residential consumer, is that going to be good for you or not? And I think most people are like, no, that's not good.”
Crucial session ahead
With their legislative session beginning Jan. 13, Florida lawmakers have already advanced one AI bill that shows how the state is approaching the technology.
The legislation targets artificial intelligence in the insurance industry by requiring that a “qualified human professional” must make the ultimate decision on claim denials or reductions. At the same time, the measure notes insurers could still use AI and algorithms to process claims and offer recommendations on approvals and denials.
Despite California, a frequent DeSantis foil, passing a similar policy, bill sponsor state Rep. Hillary Cassel (R-Dania Beach) claimed her state’s legislation will be different “because California really regulated the industry versus identifying that AI is a tool to be utilized.”
“We want AI to be utilized for the right reason,” Cassel said during a Dec. 9 bill hearing. “We didn't want to draft legislation that completely curtailed the innovation of AI.”
For DeSantis, new AI laws are another way to crack down on Big Tech companies, which he contends haven’t gotten enough oversight from Congress.
Florida previously passed legislation aimed at thwarting social media companies from censoring political candidates, a direct reaction to Trump getting kicked off platforms after the Jan. 6 attack at the Capitol. Additionally, the state booted minors from social media in a law prohibiting children younger than 14 from using many platforms while requiring parental approval for 14- and 15-year-olds. Florida previously tackled some aspects of AI by requiring disclaimers on political ads featuring artificial intelligence and creating state penalties for AI child pornography.
Building new AI protections for consumers and families is popular policy that transcends party lines, DeSantis said.
“Whether that's as a utility rate payer not having to pay for a data center, or whether it's a parent knowing that there's going to be protections for children, I think a lot of people have a lot of concerns about some of the things that could be on the horizon,” DeSantis said Dec. 15.
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