AI Lobbying Soars in Washington, Among Big Firms and Upstarts
Bruce Mehlman had a seat at the table this month when President Donald Trump talked up the US as “leading artificial intelligence by a lot.”
Mehlman met with Trump, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and technology industry executives at a televised White House huddle Dec. 10, where the insiders successfully pressed for “strategies to ensure US dominance,” including upping exports of AI chips and tools.
AI is one of the hottest topics on K Street and Mehlman’s firm is one of Washington’s top players in the field, a Bloomberg Government analysis of lobbying disclosure filings found.
Those shaping the issue aren’t just the usual power brokers. A handful of rising boutique firms—including an upstart shop run by a former Google antitrust counsel and Hill liaison and another led by a retired Virginia congressman—have become go-to players in the AI influence game.
Like the emerging AI industry itself, lobbying on the topic has created new leaders, upended others, and has many trying to get a toehold on regulating the technology of the future.
“If you’ve been doing any tech policy lobbying in the past, you’ve probably rebranded yourself as an AI lobbyist,” said Adam Kovacevich, founder and CEO of the tech lobbying group Chamber of Progress, where OpenAI and Apple are among the partner companies. “Most of the debates consuming Congress have some connection to AI.”
A collection of lobbying shops hauled in the biggest share of federal lobbying revenue in 2025 from clients seeking to press the White House, executive branch agencies, and Congress on AI, BGOV found.
Technology executives poised to make unprecedented fortunes in AI see aligning with the Trump administration as an opportunity to cement industry-friendly regulations. They’re also courting lawmakers from both parties on Capitol Hill.
Investing in Washington
That means investing big in Washington. Registered lobbying firms raked in almost $92 million in the first three quarters of 2025 from AI-related issues, BGOV found. Millions more have been spent in-house on lobbying efforts by the world’s largest tech firms, including
Generative AI could bring in $1.8 trillion in annual revenue by 2032 and comprise up to 16% of global technology spending, according to projections by Bloomberg Intelligence. That trajectory has propelled policy fights into other sectors—disrupting health care, defense, entertainment, and more.
With the midterm campaigns taking the spotlight next year, AI issues will grab even more attention tied to energy costs, data centers, children’s safety, and changes to the workforce.
“If you say ‘AI,’ you’re going to get a lot of folks on the Hill to jump. They’re interested in that,” said Mike Hettinger, who runs the Hettinger Strategy Group, a firm with more than 30% of its federal lobbying revenue tied to AI. “The policy in my business has evolved along with the market as it’s gone in that direction.”
Lobbyists are parlaying tech policy experience from past government gigs and tech work into AI, just as old-guard software engineers have morphed into AI developers and trainers. Distinct from the billionaire technology company leaders descending on Washington in recent months, these K Street denizens already have carved out expertise in developing legislation and government regulation.
“I’ve spent my career explaining Washington to Silicon Valley and Silicon Valley to Washington,” said Mehlman. His clients include the Technology CEO Council,
Playing ‘Whac-A-Mole’
Tony Samp, who heads the AI policy practice at DLA Piper, was the founding director of the Senate AI Caucus. He previously worked for Sen.
Samp said he was getting briefed on AI back “before it was cool.”
“It touches just about everything—companies, businesses, organizations, universities,” Samp said. “They want to be in the know about what is happening in Washington. It will remain a pretty busy line of work.”
Nvidia recently won approval from the Trump administration to sell its AI chips to China, and lawmakers dropped provisions from the fiscal 2026 defense authorization that would have limited chipmakers’ ability to do so. Critics from both parties continue pushing to restrict such sales, though, indicating the issue will carry into 2026.
“Two years ago, I was not talking about AI issues,” said Greta Joynes, who chairs Brownstein’s telecommunications and technology practice. “Now I talk about AI issues every day.”
Fights over data centers, shifting jobs, and energy costs to fuel AI are rippling through Washington and in state legislatures, where regulations have moved more quickly.
“Every one of our clients is interested in the future of AI, what the regulatory picture might look like,” Joynes said. “I do think, where clients are choosing to engage now, is at the federal level and playing Whac-a-Mole at the state level.”
That game of Whac-a-Mole is behind an executive order Trump signed on Dec. 11. It seeks to thwart states from regulating AI piecemeal by instructing the Justice Department to challenge laws inconsistent with the administration’s “minimally burdensome national policy framework for AI.”
Acts of Congress
The Trump administration, and major AI industry players, favor a federal standard over state-by-state regulation. But for such a policy to remain durable in future administrations, Congress would need to act.
Trump-allied lawmakers already attempted such a move over the summer, attaching a provision to Republicans’ tax-and-spending bill that would have stopped states from enforcing their own AI laws for the next decade. However, the measure was removed at the last minute after objections from Senate Republicans.
Sen.
ChatGPT and the explosion of large-language models put the industry’s issues at the forefront, according to Paul Stimers, a partner at Holland & Knight. The firm holds another big book of AI lobbying business, including Waymo and the Center for Humane Technology.
Stimers said he shared the room with Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and other tech billionaires last Congress while working for the Center. Then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) had convened a discussion on AI policy.
The senators developed a roadmap for AI regulation during the Biden administration, focusing on workforce changes, model transparency, and unintended biases in the technology. Following the turnover in administration and the rescission of Biden-era restrictions, clients had to adapt to a new, accelerated pace.
“It’s a very complex environment in which we’re working,” Stimers said.
Specializing in AI
Some of the smallest lobbying firms are making the biggest waves in AI matters, BGOV’s analysis found.
More than 30% of the K Street shop TwinLogic Strategies’ federal lobbying revenue came from clients in AI or with AI policy priorities.
Elizabeth Frazee, a former congressional aide to then-Rep.
Goodlatte’s own lobbying business, Goodlatte Group, is another small shop focused on AI.
Though other congressional committees also have jurisdiction over AI and technology, House Judiciary has been a springboard for lobbyists who this year have the biggest percentage of lobbying revenue from AI work, BGOV’s analysis showed.
Goodlatte, who didn’t respond to requests for comment, is a former chairman of the committee and represents the Association of American Publishers and Walt Disney Co. on AI issues, disclosures show.
Jeffries Strategies, a firm with all of its registered clients involved in AI, is run by E. Stewart Jeffries, who worked in-house at Google as public policy and government relations senior counsel. He was an antitrust counsel, advising Republicans, on the House Judiciary Committee for seven years. He did not respond to requests for comment.
At his firm, 100% of disclosed lobbying revenue this year comes from clients in AI or with AI policy issues: Google, Amazon.com Services LLC, Meta Platforms Inc., and
Starting Point
Carl Thorsen, a founder of Radius Advocacy (formerly Thorsen French Advocacy), was counsel for House Judiciary and formerly worked for House Republican leaders.
The firm’s lobbying work for AI businesses or companies disclosing AI-related matters represents more than 30% of its federal revenue. Clients include Bria AI, an Israeli-based company that has endorsed bipartisan Senate legislation that would set out the ability to sue AI companies for potential harms caused by their systems.
Thorsen said the Judiciary panel’s purview puts it often at the center of fights over AI.
“It’s a false narrative that the Judiciary committees are simply battlegrounds for culture war base politics,” Thorsen said. “As Congress wrestles with how to legislate on AI, intellectual property, competition policy, antitrust, regulatory reform, and even the federal criminal code are front and center in that conversation.”
TwinLogic’s Frazee and others who have worked on high-tech policy issues for decades said the focus on AI is pervasive.
“We are working on AI with almost every single one of our clients,” she said.
Her business partner Greg Barnes, who worked for Democrats on the House Judiciary panel, doesn’t see that slowing down.
“We are definitely at the starting point in this process,” Barnes said.
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Bloomberg Government ranked lobbying firms that disclosed work on issues related to artificial intelligence in Lobbying Disclosure Act reports this year through the third quarter.
Figures shown in the interactive represent the sum of revenue reported by each lobbying firm. Revenue reported on filings that feature multiple disclosed lobbying issues may not be fully attributable to lobbying work related solely to artificial intelligence. Registrants are not required to itemize income received in service of specific lobbying issues. Self-filed lobbying disclosures related to artificial intelligence were not included in this interactive.
Keywords used to identify firms included: A.I., AI, artificial intelligence, AIOPS, ASIC, augmented reality, autonomous delivery, autonomous driving, autonomous car, autonomous cars, autonomous vehicle, autonomous vehicles, big data, chatbot, computer vision, deeptech, deep learning, GPU, GPUs, internet of things, IOT, large language model, large language models, LLM, LLMs, machine learning, NLP, robotics, robotic process automation, RPA, self-driving, smart glasses, xaas.