AI Regulation Tracker / National strategy and policy
Colombia Adopts CONPES 4144, Its National AI Policy Roadmap to 2030
Approved February 14, 2025 as a policy document, not a binding law. Colombia's National Planning Department published CONPES 4144, a national AI policy that sets governance and ethics principles, a risk-based approach, and more than 100 planned actions through 2030. It directs the state, not private firms, and leans on sectoral regulators and future rules for any teeth.
Colombia now has a national AI policy on paper. On February 14, 2025, the Consejo Nacional de Politica Economica y Social, working through the National Planning Department, approved CONPES 4144, the country's first whole-of-government roadmap for artificial intelligence. It is worth being precise about what that is and is not, because the label matters. A CONPES document is a policy instrument. It commits government entities to a plan of action and a budget. It is not a statute, and it does not by itself impose enforceable duties on private companies.
What it does is set direction. The policy states its own purpose plainly: to "generate capacities for research, development, adoption and ethical and sustainable use of AI systems in order to promote social and economic transformation in Colombia." That is the mission statement. Underneath it sits a real structure.
What is actually in CONPES 4144?
The policy is organized around six strategic axes: ethics and governance, data and technological infrastructure, research, development and innovation, capacity building and digital talent, risk mitigation, and the use and adoption of AI across the public and private sectors. Under those axes, CONPES 4144 lays out more than 100 discrete actions to be carried out through 2030, along with governance arrangements, a risk-based approach to deployment, capacity-building programs, investment priorities, and monitoring indicators. It is a plan with milestones, not a slogan.
The governance axis is the one to watch. It commits the state to strengthen governance mechanisms and apply ethical, rights-respecting principles to AI development and use, and it points toward audit, accountability, and impact-assessment mechanisms for how public entities deploy AI. But the enforcement of any of this depends on sectoral regulators and on future, separate legal instruments. Colombia has already begun issuing those in parallel, including binding algorithmic-transparency standards for the state, which is exactly the pattern CONPES 4144 anticipates: the policy sets the direction, and other instruments supply the obligations.
Is CONPES 4144 binding on companies?
No, and this is the discipline point. Anyone telling you that Colombia now "regulates AI" through CONPES 4144 is overstating it. The policy does not create obligations you can be fined for missing. It is a roadmap that binds the government to a plan, funds that plan, and signals where the rules are heading. Anyone telling you it is meaningless is missing the other half: policy documents like this are how the enforceable instruments get seeded. When a national government commits in writing to governance, risk assessment, and public-sector AI audits, the regulations that follow tend to track the policy.
What should executives do about it?
Treat CONPES 4144 as intelligence, not compliance. If you operate in Colombia, are entering the market, or sell AI-enabled products into Colombian public entities, this document tells you the shape of the environment you are moving into. Public procurement and public-sector partners will increasingly be operating under governance, transparency, and risk-assessment expectations drawn from this policy. The practical move is to map your own AI governance, documentation, and risk-assessment practices to the axes here, so that when the binding instruments arrive, and they are arriving, you are already aligned rather than scrambling. It costs little to read your operation against a published national roadmap. It costs more to be surprised by the regulation it produces.
Questions professionals are asking
Is CONPES 4144 a law?
No. It is a CONPES document, a national public-policy roadmap approved by the Consejo Nacional de Politica Economica y Social through the National Planning Department on February 14, 2025. It commits government entities to actions and budgets but does not itself create enforceable legal obligations on private companies.
What does CONPES 4144 cover?
It sets six strategic axes, ethics and governance, data and infrastructure, research and development, talent, risk mitigation, and AI adoption, and lays out more than 100 actions to be implemented through 2030, with governance arrangements, a risk-based approach, investment priorities, and monitoring indicators.
Does it impose AI obligations on companies operating in Colombia?
Not directly. The policy primarily directs public-sector entities and relies on sectoral regulators and separate binding instruments for enforcement. Companies should read it as a forward signal of the governance, transparency, and risk-assessment expectations that Colombia's coming rules are likely to carry.
What should an executive do in response?
Treat it as market intelligence. Map your AI governance, documentation, and risk-assessment practices to the policy's axes, especially if you sell AI-enabled products to Colombian public entities, so you are aligned when the binding instruments that this policy anticipates take effect.
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Informational analysis for working professionals, not legal advice. Confirm how any policy or requirement applies to your situation with qualified counsel in the relevant jurisdiction.