AI Lobbying Spending: Who Is Lobbying on Artificial Intelligence (2026)
AI lobbying has exploded, over 3,500 lobbyists now work on AI policy. See which companies spend the most and what they lobby for.
Read article →Updated May 2026 · Senate LDA filings
Senate LDA Data AnalysisAnalysis
Data-driven analysis of federal lobbying — who spends, on what issues, and how influence works in Washington. Every piece is anchored in the same Senate LDA quarterly filings that power the rest of LobbySpend, with the underlying methodology linked from each article.
10 analysis pieces are currently live, covering both individual sector deep dives and structural explainers about how the LDA disclosure regime actually works in practice. The current mix breaks down into 4 sector deep dives, 3 explainers, 1 sector comparison, 1 index explainer, 1 top filers — pieces are added as new quarterly filings and major regulatory cycles surface fresh angles in the data.
The LobbySpend index draws from the public Senate Office of Public Records LDA API. The analysis pieces here are written against the same dataset and sit alongside the campaign-finance reporting at OpenSecrets, which uses the same filings and frequently covers individual lobbyists, named bills, and PAC activity in greater depth. Use both together when working through a specific organization or issue.
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Read article →How to Use This Section
If you have a specific organization in mind — an employer, a competitor, a company you read about in the news — start at the homepage search or the biggest-spenders ranking. The entity page will give you the full history, top issues, and named lobbyists. Analysis pieces are the right next stop when you want to understand the broader pattern: not just "what does Microsoft spend?" but "how does the entire tech sector compare to pharma and oil?"
Sector deep dives (AI, crypto, firearms, tech) are useful for industry briefings and competitive landscape work. Explainers (how lobbying works, what foreign lobbying covers, the price of influence) are written for readers new to the LDA disclosure regime and serve as the natural starting point before drilling into a specific filer. Top-filer summaries roll up the largest movers across sectors and refresh as new quarters of data come in.
For the index-wide methodology, including how the Influence Score weights total spend, issue breadth, and revolving-door staffing, see the methodology page. For LDA-specific terminology, the glossary covers covered positions, general issue codes, and the FARA distinction.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is LobbySpend Analysis?
Analysis is the long-form arm of LobbySpend — a library of data-driven explainers that read the Senate LDA disclosures sideways. Each piece works through one specific question (which industries spend the most, who lobbies on AI, how the revolving door is distributed across filers) using the same dataset that powers the rest of the site.
How are these analyses different from the company and industry pages?
The entity pages summarize a single registrant or sector at a glance: total spend, issue mix, score, year-over-year trend. Analysis pieces are the opposite shape — they cut across many entities to surface a structural pattern, like how the largest tech companies cluster on the same five issues, or how foreign-government FARA filings behave compared to ordinary LDA registrants.
Are LobbySpend articles editorial?
They are descriptive. Every article is anchored in numbers from the underlying Senate LDA filings, with the methodology behind each aggregation linked back to the methodology page. Articles report what was disclosed and provide context, but do not infer strategy, ethics, or political alignment from the data.
How often is new analysis published?
New pieces are added every two to four weeks, typically prompted by a fresh quarterly LDA refresh, a major regulatory rulemaking that pulls visible filing reactions, or a structural question that has surfaced in the index but not yet been written up.
Where can I read the underlying numbers?
Every analysis cites the entity, sector, or issue pages it draws from. The full quarterly history for any named filer is available at /company/[slug], the sector context at /industry/[slug], and the issue-area aggregations at /issue/[slug]. The original Senate LDA filings are public domain and accessible at lda.senate.gov.
LobbySpend Analysis is a library of data-driven articles built on the same Senate LDA quarterly filings that power the rest of the site. Pieces describe disclosed lobbying activity and link to the underlying entity, sector, and issue pages.