Short Summary: New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has launched what her administration calls the largest regulatory review in state history, using Stanford University's RegLab AI system alongside outside experts to flag thousands of rules that could be simplified or eliminated. The first wave of reforms includes 50 regulatory actions expected to save residents tens of millions of dollars.

New York Turns to AI to Untangle Decades of Red Tape

New York is using artificial intelligence to do something state governments rarely attempt at scale: systematically review its own regulatory code and figure out what no longer needs to exist.

Gov. Kathy Hochul has signed an executive order launching what her administration is calling a "regulatory reset," directing state agencies to review existing rules, fees, fines, and the boards and commissions that oversee them. The goal, according to the governor's office, is to simplify or eliminate outdated requirements, cut compliance costs, and make it easier for the state to deliver core services, without shrinking what government actually does.

That last distinction matters to Hochul's framing. Rather than positioning the effort as a spending cut or a reduction in government's footprint, she's pitched it as a modernization project. In a statement tied to the executive order, Hochul said that outdated red tape has made it harder for the state to serve residents, and contrasted her approach with efforts elsewhere in the country to gut government functions altogether.

Why AI Is Involved

The most distinctive part of the initiative is how New York identified which rules to target. According to the governor's office, the state worked with nonprofit organizations and academic researchers, and specifically used Stanford University's RegLab AI system, to analyze the state's regulatory code and surface thousands of potential opportunities for simplification. Human reviewers, including state officials and outside experts, then validated the AI-generated recommendations before they became formal proposals.

Robert Gordon, executive vice president of the Recoding America Fund, one of the organizations that assisted with the AI-driven review, framed the core problem as one of accumulation rather than any single bad rule. Gordon said governments tend to keep adding new requirements without going back to check whether the older ones are still needed, according to The Center Square, and described New York's approach as asking what can simply be removed.

Using an AI system to scan large volumes of regulatory text for redundancy and obsolescence is a task well suited to language models, which can process and cross-reference far more code than a small team of human reviewers could realistically get through in the same timeframe. That's a big part of why the review reportedly surfaced thousands of candidate changes rather than the handful a manual audit might typically catch.

What's Actually Changing First

The regulatory review builds on Hochul's existing EXPRESS NY program (Expediting Processes and Regulations to Enable Streamlined Services), which already spans 22 state agencies. As part of this expanded push, the administration announced an initial package of 50 regulatory actions, which officials estimate will save New Yorkers tens of millions of dollars in fees and compliance costs. More than 1.5 million residents are expected to benefit from this first wave.

The reforms fall into four buckets: saving time, saving money, expanding access to services, and eliminating obsolete rules. Specific measures include simplifying license renewals for more than 800,000 licensed professionals, streamlining reviews for affordable housing projects, cutting paperwork for Medicaid providers, modernizing victim compensation procedures, and updating settlement rules at the Division of Human Rights.

On the cost side, the state plans to eliminate several licensing and application fees, drop a $25,000 bonding requirement for companies that transport certain manufactured homes, and reduce equity requirements tied to nursing home construction projects.

Clearing Out Rules That Never Got Repealed

Some of the most striking findings involve regulations that have simply outlived their purpose. The administration identified 15 outdated labor regulations for repeal, including a decades-old rule requiring restaurants to obtain special permits before letting women work past midnight, along with outdated timesheet specifications for truck and bus operators and sanitation rules dating back to the 1970s.

In a detail that captures just how long some rules can linger unnoticed, the state also plans to formally rescind Y2K bug guidance still maintained by its Office of Information and Technology Services, more than a quarter century after the year 2000 came and went without incident.

Public Input Fed the Process Too

The AI-driven review wasn't the only input shaping these reforms. Earlier this year, New York opened the EXPRESS NY portal for public suggestions and received nearly 4,000 proposals from residents across all 62 counties. State officials say those submissions are still being reviewed and will inform additional regulatory changes expected later this year.

Why This Matters Beyond New York

State governments have talked about cutting red tape for decades, but the process has traditionally been slow and manual, one reason so many obsolete rules, like New York's Y2K guidance, tend to survive far longer than anyone intends. Pairing that review with an AI system built specifically for legal and regulatory text, as Stanford's RegLab is, suggests a template other states may eventually borrow: use AI to do the first-pass scanning at scale, then let human experts and public feedback decide what actually gets cut.

Whether New York's approach produces lasting savings, or simply front-loads easy wins before harder, more contested reforms, will likely become clearer as the administration works through the nearly 4,000 public suggestions still under review.

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Key Takeaways

• Gov. Kathy Hochul signed an executive order launching what her administration calls the largest regulatory review in New York's history.

• The state used Stanford University's RegLab AI system, alongside nonprofit and academic partners, to flag thousands of regulations for potential simplification or repeal.

• An initial package of 50 regulatory actions is expected to save residents tens of millions of dollars and benefit more than 1.5 million people.

• Reforms include easier license renewals for over 800,000 professionals, reduced fees, and the repeal of 15 outdated labor rules, including decades-old restrictions on women working past midnight.

• Nearly 4,000 public suggestions submitted through the EXPRESS NY portal are still being reviewed and will shape further changes later this year.

Sources

• Governor's Office – Cutting Red Tape: Governor Hochul Issues Executive Order Kicking Off Regulatory Reset

• The Center Square – Recoding America Fund on New York's regulatory review