Tennessee AI law and policy in 2026: the ELVIS Act and the AI Advisory Council

Our analysis: separate statutes the legislature passed and the governor signed from council recommendations, agency guidance and proposals. Only the first creates binding obligations, and even then the statute’s text and any court interpretation control. This guide is not legal advice.

Gov. Bill Lee signed the Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security (ELVIS) Act on March 21, 2024. The governor’s office describes it as updating Tennessee’s Protection of Personal Rights law to protect songwriters’, performers’ and music professionals’ voices from AI misuse. [Office of the Governor of Tennessee]

The governor’s office says Tennessee was the first state to address the impact of AI on the music industry this way. Read the enacted text for scope, exceptions and remedies. [Office of the Governor of Tennessee]

The Tennessee Department of Finance & Administration hosts the state’s Artificial Intelligence Advisory Council. [Tennessee Department of Finance & Administration] In November 2025 the state announced the council’s action plan for AI in Tennessee. [Tennessee Department of Finance & Administration]

Our analysis: an action plan sets direction; agency adoption and any legislation need their own records.

Air permitting for xAI’s Memphis turbines, reported by The Commercial Appeal, is an example of a project-level regulatory decision that sits outside AI-specific law. [The Commercial Appeal]

Our analysis: follow the agency and docket that actually governs a project rather than assuming a statewide AI rule applies.

Our analysis: keep four dates apart for every record: the date a source was published, the date the desk reviewed it, the date a decision or approval took effect, and the date anything actually started operating. A review date on this site never turns an older announcement into new news, and a planned figure is never presented as a delivered one.

Our analysis: when a field such as investment, power or employment is not disclosed in a cited record, the desk leaves it blank rather than estimating it. A blank is unknown, not zero, and readers should ask the controlling party for the actual document before relying on any number. County boundaries come from the Census Gazetteer so that every record can be tied to one of Tennessee’s 95 counties. [U.S. Census Bureau]

Our analysis: corrections are welcome. If a cited page changes, moves or is superseded by a newer agency decision, the desk updates the record with the new source and its own date rather than silently rewriting the old claim. Readers making a consequential decision should consult the controlling agency record and qualified professionals.