AI Congressional Mandates & Executive Orders

NIST’s AI efforts are driven by congressional mandates, Presidential Executive Orders and policies, the needs expressed by U.S. industry, the global research community, other federal agencies, and the broader AI community – as well as NIST’s experience and its own capabilities.

Congressional Mandates

National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act of 2020 (P.L. 116-283), (1/1/2021). Directs NIST to:

• advance collaborative frameworks, standards, guidelines, and associated methods and techniques for AI;

• develop a risk-mitigation framework for deploying AI systems;

• support development of technical standards and guidelines that promote trustworthy AI systems;

• support development of technical standards and guidelines to test for bias in AI training data and applications; and

• conduct stakeholder outreach.

The Act also established:

• The National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee (NAIAC), tasked with advising the President and the White House National AI Initiative Office. NIST provides administrative support to NAIAC.

• A Task Force charged with investigating the feasibility and advisability of establishing and sustaining a National AI Research Resource (NAIRR) and to propose a roadmap detailing how such a resource should be established and sustained. This Task Force has included a member from NIST.

Executive Orders Directly Related to NIST’s AI  Work

• Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence  (1/23/2025)

  Calls for an action plan to sustain and enhance America’s global AI dominance in order to promote human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and national security. Also directs a review of any actions taken pursuant to Executive Order 14110 that are or may be inconsistent with, or present obstacles to, the new order's policy. An accompanying fact sheet cites the NIST-produced plan to strengthen engagement in AI technical standards and the plan for national AI research institutes (NAIRR), where a NIST official was part of the NAIRR task force.

• Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (10/30/2023)  

  [Rescinded 1/20/2025] Directs NIST to develop guidelines and reports on Generative AI, secure software development, synthetic content, and global engagement in standards as well as ensure the availability of testing environments.

• Executive Order on Promoting the Use of Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence in the Federal Government (12/3/2020) 

  Establishes AI principles for federal agencies. NIST subsequently reflected those principles in the NIST AI Risk Management Framework called for by the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act of 2020 which became law on January 1, 2020.

• Executive Order on Maintaining American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence (2/14/2019)

  Directs NIST to create a plan for federal engagement in the development of technical standards and related tools in support of reliable, robust, and trustworthy systems that use AI technologies.