Executive order on advanced AI innovation and security signed

On 2 June 2026 President Donald J. Trump signed Executive Order “Promoting Advanced Artificial Intelligence Innovation and Security,” published in the Federal Register on 5 June 2026 (FR Doc. 2026-11415).¹² The order directs the Committee on National Security Systems, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Department of the Treasury, the Department of War, the Department of Homeland Security, the Office of Management and Budget, the Office of Personnel Management and the Attorney General on a series of 30- and 60-day deliverables in cyber defence of federal systems; a voluntary framework allowing AI developers to engage the federal government on whether a model qualifies as a “covered frontier model” and to provide up to 30 days of pre-release access before releasing the model “to other trusted partners”; and prioritisation by the Attorney General of federal criminal enforcement against AI-enabled unauthorised computer access under 18 U.S.C. §§ 1028, 1030 and 1343. Section 3(c) provides verbatim: “Nothing in this section shall be construed to authorize the creation of a mandatory governmental licensing, preclearance, or permitting requirement for the development, publication, release, or distribution of new AI models, including frontier models.”³⁴

1. The voluntary frontier-model framework under § 3 operates through developer election. § 3(a) directs the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of War (through the Director of the National Security Agency) and the Secretary of Homeland Security (through the Director of CISA), in consultation with the White House Chief of Staff (through the National Cyber Director), the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and the Secretary of Commerce (through the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology), to develop a classified benchmarking process assessing the “advanced cyber capabilities of AI models” and to determine the threshold for designation as a “covered frontier model”; designation is made by the NSA Director. § 3(b) directs the same agencies to design the voluntary framework under which a developer may (i) engage the federal government on whether a model meets the covered-frontier-model designation; (ii) provide federal-government access to the model for up to 30 days before releasing it “to other trusted partners,” subject to confidentiality, cybersecurity, insider-risk and intellectual-property protections; and (iii) collaborate on trusted-partner selection. § 3(c)‘s disclaimer of mandatory licensing, preclearance or permitting distinguishes the framework from the notification-and-reporting requirements imposed on “dual-use foundation models” by Executive Order 14110 of 30 October 2023 (Biden), which was revoked by Executive Order 14179 of 23 January 2025 (Trump’s first-week AI action).⁵⁶⁷

2. § 2 of the order sets a sequence of 30-day deliverables for federal-system cyber defence: § 2(a) requires the Committee on National Security Systems to prioritise the cyber defence of National Security Systems as defined at 44 U.S.C. § 3552(b)(6)(A); § 2(b) requires the Secretary of War to prioritise Department of War information systems; § 2(c) requires the DHS Secretary (through the CISA Director, in consultation with the OMB Director, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and the National Cyber Director) to release Binding Operational Directives expediting cyber defence of civilian federal information systems, enhancing AI-enabled defensive tools, and (at § 2(c)(iii)) facilitating critical-infrastructure access to covered frontier models including for “rural hospitals, community banks, and local utilities”; § 2(d) requires the Treasury Secretary to form an AI cybersecurity clearinghouse coordinating vulnerability scanning, validation and patch distribution in voluntary collaboration with industry and critical-infrastructure operators; and § 2(e) requires the OMB Director to determine federal-grant-program funding redirectable to AI-vulnerability-detection development. § 2(f) sets the sole 60-day deliverable in the section: the OPM Director expansion of the United States Tech Force Information Cybersecurity Specialist hiring and placement pathways.⁸⁹

3. Section 4 directs the Attorney General to prioritise investigation and prosecution of federal crimes involving unauthorised computer access committed through the use of AI systems, operating principally under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1030, which criminalises intentional access to a computer “without authorization or exceeding authorized access” (§ 1030(a)) with penalties graduated by harm at § 1030(c). The AI-enabled-crime priority sits alongside existing wire-fraud (18 U.S.C. § 1343) and identity-theft (18 U.S.C. § 1028) tools already used in cyber-criminal prosecutions; the order does not create a new federal criminal offence and does not modify the elements of any existing offence.¹⁰¹¹

4. The order rests on the President’s Article II authority over federal agency direction and on existing statutory authorities including the Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014, 44 U.S.C. § 3551 et seq. (federal-system information security); the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015, 6 U.S.C. § 1501 et seq. (cyber-threat information sharing); and the Homeland Security Act of 2002, Pub. L. 107-296 (DHS and CISA establishment authorities). The order does not invoke the Defense Production Act, 50 U.S.C. § 4501 et seq., under either its Title III financial-incentive authorities or its Title VII voluntary-agreement authorities.^12131415