The Trump administration is preparing an executive order that would require AI companies to hand over their most advanced models to the US government a full 90 days before releasing them to the public. Think of it as a mandatory test drive for Washington before anyone else gets the keys.
The policy, if enacted, would represent one of the most direct interventions into the AI development pipeline by any administration. For an White House that has spent much of 2025 tearing down regulatory barriers around AI, requiring a three-month government preview window is a notable pivot toward more hands-on oversight.
What the early-access requirement actually means
The 90-day pre-release window would give federal agencies time to evaluate advanced AI models before they hit the market. In English: the government wants first dibs on poking around inside the most powerful AI systems being built, ostensibly to assess safety risks and national security implications.
This isn’t about regulating chatbots that write your cover letters. The focus is on “advanced models,” which typically means frontier systems, the kind pushing the boundaries of what AI can do. The ones that keep AI safety researchers up at night.
