AI industry-backed group to spend millions pushing regulation agenda
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The AI industry is preparing to launch a multimillion-dollar ad campaign through a new policy advocacy group, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: The new group — Build American AI — is the latest sign that the flush-with-cash AI industry is preparing to spend massive sums promoting its agenda, namely its push for federal, not state, regulation.
Zoom out: Build American AI is an offshoot of Leading the Future, a pro-AI super PAC.
- While Leading the Future aims to invest tens of millions of dollars in 2026 midterm races, Build American AI will focus on issue-oriented ads promoting the industry's legislative agenda in Congress and the states.
- Unlike the Leading the Future super PAC, Build American AI is a nonprofit group — meaning it's a "dark money" organization that's not required to disclose its donors.
- Leading the Future has announced that it's raised $100 million, a figure that will make it a major player in the midterms.
Zoom in: Organizers say Build American AI will emphasize the industry's push for AI to be regulated on a federal level. The industry doesn't want different states to have different policies for regulation, a position that mirrors President Trump's.
- The new group appears ready to target political figures who want to regulate AI on a state level.
- AI leaders are concerned that individual states could embrace policies that lead to what the industry would see as overregulation, and instead want uniform federally imposed guidelines.
Several states already have enacted or are considering plans to regulate AI.
- California — home to Silicon Valley — has passed several bills regulating AI development, for example.
Build American AI will spend eight figures on advertising between now and the spring, a person familiar with the plans told Axios.
- It is not yet clear which states it will target with its ads.
What they're saying: "We will aggressively highlight the opportunities AI creates for workers and communities, and we will expose and challenge the misinformation being spread by ideological groups trying to undermine the
nation's ability to lead," Leading the Future co-heads Zac Moffatt and Josh Vlasto told Axios.
