The Rise of AI Authorities? A Closer Look at Latin America’s Institutional Responses and External Influences

Abstract

Artificial intelligence governance in Latin America is emerging through new legislative proposals that increasingly draw on the European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act. This article asks how Latin American countries are designing artificial intelligence oversight and enforcement mechanisms, and whether they are replicating the European institutional model for supervisory authorities. Existing scholarship has examined the circulation of European regulatory models in data protection law, but it has not yet adequately addressed how that influence operates in the early institutional design of artificial intelligence governance in Latin America. The article develops a comparative legal analysis of the Ibero-American context, with particular focus on Brazil and Chile, in order to assess how European regulatory templates are received, adapted, and operationalized. It argues that Latin American artificial intelligence regulation is likely to follow a pattern already observed in second-generation data protection reforms: the adoption of broad statutory frameworks inspired by European law, but reshaped by local institutional capacities, budgetary constraints, and regional political economy. The analysis shows that the central dilemma concerns whether to extend the mandate of existing data protection authorities to artificial intelligence or to establish specialized supervisory agencies. Brazil and Chile illustrate two especially significant pathways, given Brazil’s regional influence within BRICS and MERCOSUR and Chile’s role as an open economy deeply integrated into transnational digital governance networks. The article contributes to comparative scholarship on artificial intelligence regulation by showing how supervisory design becomes a crucial site of legal translation between European regulatory influence and Latin American institutional realities.