On paper, Brazil has Latin America's most ambitious AI bill — but it's been stuck for over a year at exactly the point where AI laws tend to get stuck in any country: biometric surveillance.
Brazil's Senate passed PL 2338/2023 on December 10, 2024, establishing rules for the development and use of artificial intelligence in Brazil with a risk classification structure comparable to the EU AI Act's. At the time, it was the most significant AI legislative advance in the region.
As of mid-2026, the bill is still pending in the Chamber of Deputies, where amendments are expected to address civil society concerns about biometric surveillance exceptions — the same friction point that has delayed AI laws in other jurisdictions. The Chamber referred the proposal to a set of committees (Labor, Culture, Education, Consumer Protection, Science and Technology, Constitution and Justice), each with the ability to introduce changes before a floor vote.
To become law, the measure still needs approval from the Chamber of Deputies and the president's signature. Since it has already spent two years in process since Senate approval, there's no firm date for when the Chamber might vote on it — the Brazilian legislative process has no mandatory deadline for this type of bill.
Despite the standstill, PL 2338 remains the reference point other Latin American countries cite when designing their own frameworks — not because it's already law, but because it's the region's most developed and debated text, with a risk classification structure likely to influence how the next proposals in Mexico, Chile, or Colombia get written, even if Brazil's own bill takes several more years to become law.
While PL 2338 remains in process, the ANPD (Brazil's data protection authority) and the LGPD already function as the de facto framework for any AI system that processes personal data — much like the role the DPDP Act plays in India. Any company deploying AI in Brazil should treat its LGPD compliance today as the foundation on which PL 2338's AI-specific obligations will eventually be built.
Carlos Montiel is an enterprise AI solutions architect. He implements LLMs, Agents, RAG, and orchestrators for companies across Guatemala and Latin America. Reach out for a consultation.
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