AI Distillation Attacks: The Case for Targeted Government Intervention
In February 2026, Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google published evidence of systematic campaigns by Chinese AI companies to extract capabilities from American frontier models. This memo examines how distillation attacks work, why there is a case for targeted government intervention and what that might look like. Recommendations are offered to support industry efforts to counter distillation attacks: (1) consider BIS Entity List designations for adversary AI companies conducting distillation attacks; (2) assess the merits of PAIP Act sanctions against those engaging in or facilitating distillation attack; (3) explore the development of a NIST-led AI Distillation Defense Framework for the broader ecosystem.
Highly Autonomous Cyber-Capable Agents: Anticipating Capabilities, Tactics, and Strategic Implications
Offensive cyber capabilities in frontier AI models are advancing fast. In a matter of months, models have gone from near-zero to meaningful success rates on expert-level security challenges, and leading AI developers have begun triggering their own internal risk thresholds for cybersecurity. Meanwhile, real-world cases have already emerged in which AI agents autonomously executed significant portions of state-sponsored cyber campaigns. These developments raise an increasingly urgent question: what happens when AI systems can plan, execute, and sustain sophisticated cyber operations entirely on their own
Kimi Claw: Risks from Chinese-Hosted ‘Always On’ AI Agents
Beijing-based, Alibaba-backed AI company Moonshot now offers Kimi Claw - an 'always-on' AI agent embedded in its consumer platform that can access users' files, apps, and communications continuously. Where TikTok collects data from a single app, these agents represent a qualitatively deeper level of data exposure. This memo examines the privacy, cybersecurity, and national security risks, and recommends four low-cost steps the federal government can take now.
Building AI Surge Capacity: Mobilizing Technical Talent into Government for AI-Related National Security Crises
The U.S. government does not currently have enough specialized AI security talent to respond to AI-related national security crises, nor does it have the hiring and clearance mechanisms to surge external experts into short-term service at the speeds a crisis demands. This report sets out how to prepare for that challenge.
Policy Actions for Enabling Cyber Defense Through Differential Access
In our Differential Access report, we provided a strategic framework to help developers give defenders an advantage by shaping access to AI-powered cyber capabilities. In a new policy memo, we outline government actions that can enable Differential Access and promote AI adoption for cyber defense.
A National Center for Advanced AI Reliability and Security
This is a linkpost for a policy memo published by the Federation of American Scientists, which proposes scaling up a significantly enhanced “CAISI+” within the Department of Commerce.
AI Agent Governance: A Field Guide
This report is an accessible guide to the emerging field of AI agent governance, including an analysis of the current landscape of agent and their capabilities, novel and enhanced risks posed by more agentic systems, and major open questions and agent interventions.