The White House is circulating a draft executive order that would ask advanced AI laboratories to hand over their models to the federal government a full 90 days before releasing them to the public. The framework is voluntary, not mandatory, but the message is clear: Washington wants a seat at the table before the next generation of AI systems goes live.
The proposal represents one of the most concrete steps yet toward federal oversight of frontier AI development. For an industry that has largely self-regulated its way through the last several years of breakneck progress, a 90-day pre-release window is a significant ask, even if compliance is technically optional.
What the draft order actually proposes
The executive order contains two primary components. The first focuses on cybersecurity, specifically aimed at strengthening protections for Pentagon systems and encouraging information sharing between AI companies and federal agencies. Think of it as the government saying, “If your AI can find vulnerabilities in our defense infrastructure, we’d like to know about it before everyone else does.”
The second component deals with what the draft calls “covered frontier models.” The order would establish a process for defining which AI systems fall into that category and create a mechanism for reviewing them before they reach the public. In English: the government wants to decide which models are powerful enough to warrant pre-release scrutiny, then actually scrutinize them.
