Milk and washing machines are more regulated than AI, president Brad Smith said on October 12, 2026.
He wants global safety rules: a legal duty to tell victims when a rogue breaches their systems, and independent government evaluators to sign off on new AI products before release. He also wants firms to install and file mandatory when a model goes out of control.
That puts him against President Donald Trump, who says the sector should regulate itself so US firms do not lose ground to Chinese rivals. Trump has said "whoever wins AI, wins."
The president of an American tech giant is publicly contradicting his own country's president on AI policy — and pointing to a foreign government as the better rulemaker.
Smith is not alone among industry leaders. The bosses of , , and Google DeepMind have all backed an AI development slowdown.
In September 2026, Trump hosted the leaders of OpenAI, Anthropic, , SpaceX, Meta, and at the White House. The executives signed a document agreeing to work with independent auditors to check their systems behave as intended.
Smith applauds that pledge and says Microsoft is happy to sign it, but calls it a necessary step that is no longer sufficient. The problem with any , he said, is that the good companies will do what you want — it is the ones that are not as responsible that you need to worry about.
Smith says the is best placed to lead these global rules, because of its , launched under former prime minister .
He argues Washington would accept UK-led standards more readily than ones. In Washington, he said, people do not look at the UK and London the way they look at Brussels — and that is a strength.