Trump's spy chief to lead his AI task force⁠.

Donald Trump on Sunday named Jay Clayton, the director of national intelligence, to serve as the new White House AI czar¹. Clayton will lead what the president calls the Super Intelligence Force, a taskforce that reports directly to Trump and to his chief of staff, Susie Wiles². Clayton leads the US's 18 intelligence agencies and ran the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump's first term¹.

Trump said the force would coordinate the federal government's engagement with consumers, public interest groups, religious organisations, critical infrastructure providers and super intelligence companies¹. Andrew Ferguson, who chairs the Federal Trade Commission, the Pentagon's Emil Michael and Scott Kupor of the Office of Personnel Management will also sit on it². The taskforce will reportedly have 120 days to write a report on the risks and opportunities of AI³.

Its charter reportedly says it will plan responses to threats from the technology "while preventing overregulation and regulatory capture that would stifle innovation and competition"³. Clayton told the Wall Street Journal that one of the biggest risks is "not being first"³. At his confirmation hearing he put it this way: "When something's both an opportunity and a threat, you better get your arms around it"¹.

The name follows an executive order Trump signed on 29 September telling government departments to say super intelligence instead of artificial intelligence². Executives from firms including OpenAI, Anthropic, SpaceX and Google have also signed a safety pact that Trump described as morally binding². TechCrunch called it a non-binding safety pledge³.

Senator Mark Warner, vice chair of the Senate intelligence committee, cautiously welcomed Clayton's appointment¹. He also said the administration "has resisted meaningful safeguards without offering a serious alternative"¹. The announcement follows pressure from executives at OpenAI and Anthropic to tighten regulation, and Trump has largely left AI companies to regulate themselves².

A new name, not a rulebook

Strip out the branding and this is a committee of senior officials with a 120 day deadline and a brief that leans away from rules. Nothing in it reaches a British company. An American taskforce does not bind the ICO, the CMA or DSIT, and no UK body has said anything about it. If you buy American models, your contracts, your data protection duties and your own checks are what they were last week.

The awkward part is the direction of travel. The calls for firmer rules came partly from the labs themselves, and Washington has answered with a new word, a voluntary pact and a taskforce told to avoid overregulation. That leaves the job of being careful where it already sat for a UK buyer: with you, and with whoever builds and runs your agents. Treat the pact, and whatever comes out of the 120 days, as a statement of intent, not a promise.

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