Colombia advances AI regulation bill, positions itself as regional leader

Colombia's Congress continues moving forward on building a regulatory framework for artificial intelligence. According to Ser Colombiano, Senate Bill 043 of 2025 and Chamber Bill 324 of 2025 already received a positive committee report and continue their legislative process, in a move aimed at placing Colombia among Latin America's leading countries on the topic. The progress of both bills lands at a moment when governments across the region are increasingly treating AI governance as a policy priority rather than a distant, theoretical concern.

Two Bills, One Shared Roadmap

Bills 043 of 2025 (Senate) and 324 of 2025 (Chamber) are moving through the Colombian Congress in parallel. According to Ser Colombiano, both initiatives already received a positive committee report, allowing them to continue their legislative process toward later stages.

According to Ser Colombiano, the proposal adopts a risk-based approach, in which obligations for those who develop or use AI systems depend on the level of risk that system represents. The bill includes requirements for the quality, representativeness, and traceability of the data used by AI systems, along with impact assessments and evaluation mechanisms to identify potential risks before a system enters operation.

The text also incorporates interinstitutional coordination and supervision mechanisms, according to Ser Colombiano, so that different state entities can monitor compliance with the obligations the law would establish for developers, distributors, and implementers of AI systems.

MinCiencias and the SIC: Who Would Lead Implementation

According to Ser Colombiano, the institutional architecture proposed by the bill would be led by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MinCiencias), supported by coordination mechanisms between state entities.

This division of responsibilities aims to ensure that oversight of artificial intelligence in Colombia does not rest with a single entity, but instead combines MinCiencias's public policy and science-and-technology view with the SIC's experience in consumer protection and market monitoring.

Colombia Compared to the Rest of Latin America

According to Ser Colombiano, Peru and El Salvador are, so far, the only countries in the region with fully enacted specific AI legislation. Chile, meanwhile, is advancing through its second constitutional review stage, while Brazil already has an AI regulation bill approved by its Senate. Mexico, per the same outlet, has proposed creating a specialized national authority on the topic.

Jose Luis Jerez, Partner of Taxes and Legal Services at Deloitte Spanish Latin America, says AI regulation represents an opportunity to generate trust and accelerate responsible adoption of the technology, and that Colombia is building the foundations for innovation and rights protection to advance together, according to Ser Colombiano. Jerez adds that the region is converging toward common principles of governance, transparency, and oversight, and that in this scenario Colombia has the opportunity to become one of Latin America's references on responsible artificial intelligence, according to the same outlet.

What a Risk-Based Approach Tends to Mean in Practice

A risk-based regulatory model, like the one Ser Colombiano describes for Bills 043 and 324 of 2025, tends to distribute obligations unevenly: AI systems with greater potential impact on people face more documentation, evaluation, and oversight requirements, while lower-risk uses carry lighter burdens. This type of architecture has already been discussed in other regulatory frameworks across the region, and it aims to avoid applying a single rule equally to, say, a customer-service chatbot and a system that decides on credit access or hiring.

For businesses that already use or plan to use artificial intelligence in their operations — whether in customer service, marketing, data analysis, or process automation — the underlying signal is the same one coming out of Brazil, Chile, Peru, El Salvador, and now Colombia: governments are treating data traceability, transparency about how a system works, and human oversight as requirements, not optional best practices. Adapting to those standards early, even before a law takes effect, tends to be simpler and less costly than adjusting later under regulatory pressure.

What This Means for Your Business

While Colombia formalizes how artificial intelligence must behave within its borders, businesses across Latin America and the United States face a parallel shift: the AI engines your own customers already use to search, compare, and decide are rewriting the rules of digital visibility. A regulatory framework like Bills 043 and 324 of 2025 confirms something already evident in the market — artificial intelligence has stopped being a novelty and become infrastructure that governments feel compelled to regulate, and that your customers already use every day to make buying decisions.

If your business is not optimized for ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google's AI Overviews to mention it when a potential customer asks about your service category, you are invisible to a growing share of buyers, regardless of which country you operate in. MerchandisePROS's AI Search Optimization (AEO) service evaluates exactly those signals — the same ones that determine whether an AI system confidently names your business — and delivers a concrete plan to close that gap. You can review the full detail of this and other services on our services page.

This matters whether you run a business in Bogotá, Medellín, Houston, or Cypress. AI answer engines do not check which country's AI law applies before deciding whether to mention your business — they check whether your website, your listings, and your online presence give them clear, structured signals to cite. A regulatory milestone like Colombia's Bills 043 and 324 of 2025 is a reminder that AI adoption is accelerating on both the consumer side and the government side at the same time, and businesses that wait to adapt lose visibility to competitors who do not.

"Colombia's AI regulation is one more signal that Latin American governments already treat artificial intelligence as critical infrastructure. Businesses that do not adapt to how AI presents them to their own customers will fall behind, law or no law."
- Diego Medina F, Founder of MerchandisePROS

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