NIST NAIAC Issues Draft Recommendations on AI Policy Issues for the Trump Administration
Summary
On January 28, 2025, the National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee (NAIAC) voted in favor of a draft report for the incoming Trump administration that provides recommendations on ten priority focus areas artificial intelligence (AI) policy. The purpose of the report is: (1) to outline near-term steps the administration can take to advance AI policy goals that further America’s competitive and leadership; and (2) to initiate a dialogue with the administration’s AI leadership.
According to the report, the ten priority focus areas are anchored in five cross-cutting priorities: (1) promoting U.S. competitiveness and innovation; (2) increasing government capacity and AI literacy; (3) advancing national priorities; (4) leveraging public-private partnerships and (5) advancing American leadership in AI governance.
The ten priority focus areas and corresponding recommendations, which the report discusses in greater detail, are:
Focus Area 1: AI and the Workforce
- Coordinate federal, state and local collaboration on workforce issues and host an intergovernmental summit on AI and American prosperity within the first year.
- Advance an interagency strategy to streamline workforce development and worker support efforts for people who become, or are at risk of being displaced by AI technology.
Focus Area 2: AI Awareness and Literacy
- Launch a national campaign to promote a basic understanding of AI throughout the U.S. by offering learning materials and programs for all Americans.
Focus Area 3: AI and Education
- Direct the Department of Education to partner with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and incorporate input from key stakeholders to develop an Al Risk Management Framework (AI RMF) Profile tailored to education and educators.
- Launch “Education Hackathons” that focus attention and efforts on areas of highest priority, include key stakeholders for direct input and adopt NIST Al RMF best practices in the development and testing of AI curricula and/or tools.
Focus Area 4: AI in Science
- Develop an Al funding strategy that will: (1) evaluate Al investments in funding agencies across the science ecosystem, and (2) task a cross-agency coordinating body with establishing and expanding funding priorities for Al across this ecosystem.
Focus Area 5: AI in Health
- Recommend that the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence establish a Subcommittee on Healthcare focused on the safe, responsible use of linked, longitudinal clinical and administrative personal health information (PHI) to enable open access to cost-effective, real-world, evidence-based clinical protocols that healthcare organizations can deploy without IP constraint.
- Reconstitute a Federal Health Information Technology (HIT) Task Force to better coordinate federal agency budgets for Health IT; establish cost benchmarks impacting the health sector and test, validate and scale AI-based reforms to healthcare administration systems.
Focus Area 6: AI in Government
- Fully staff and resource the National AI Initiative Office (NAIIO) and other key Al leadership roles in the executive branch.
Focus Area 7: AI to Empower Small Business, Entrepreneurs & Nonprofits
- Launch a Task Force led by the Small Business Administration (SBA) that works directly with the White House and includes public-private partners to help create a repository of use cases, best practices and tools for small businesses and nonprofits to learn about and pilot emerging technologies.
Focus Area 8: AI Governance
- Invest in American leadership in Al safety by developing and publicly releasing guidelines and evaluation practices that produce baselines for model security.
- Authorize and increase funding to support NIST and the Al Safety Institute’s capacity to advance robust evaluation of AI and the science of AI safety.
Focus Area 9: AI for the American People
- At the February 2025 Paris Al Action Summit, announce a list of AI priorities to benefit all Americans, alongside a moonshot effort to build AI-powered solutions for one of those priorities.
- The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) can launch a public call for comment on Americans’ priorities for administration action on AI, accompanied by a commitment to release a national strategy for an “Al for the American People” initiative.
Focus Area 10: AI in Law Enforcement
- Develop a comprehensive federal plan to protect individual digital safety by establishing a White House-level cross-agency task force that coordinates government agency collaboration to identify and combat these threats.
