US AI Safety Institute renamed Center for AI Standards and Innovation

CAISI is the U.S. Center for AI Standards and Innovation, the renamed successor to the U.S. AI Safety Institute within the Department of Commerce. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick announced the rename on Tuesday, June 3, 2025, in a Commerce Department statement on transforming the institute.

What it is

CAISI is the successor body to the U.S. AI Safety Institute, continuing to operate within NIST inside the Department of Commerce. Secretary Lutnick said the reform was meant to stop censorship and regulations from being used under the guise of national security. Coverage of the rename described it as a shift away from the term safety and toward a desire for rapid development of the technology.

What it requires

CAISI is tasked with working with NIST organizations to develop guidelines and best practices to measure and improve the security of AI systems, and to assist industry in developing voluntary standards. It is also charged with establishing voluntary agreements with private sector AI developers and evaluators, and leading unclassified evaluations of AI capabilities that may pose risks to national security, focused on demonstrable risks such as cybersecurity, biosecurity, and chemical weapons. CAISI is additionally directed to lead evaluations of potential security vulnerabilities and malign foreign influence arising from adversaries' AI systems, including possible backdoors and other covert malicious behavior, and to coordinate with the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, Department of Homeland Security, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the Intelligence Community. The center is also tasked with representing U.S. interests internationally to guard against burdensome and unnecessary regulation of American technologies by foreign governments.

What security leaders should do

Security teams that previously tracked AI Safety Institute guidance, testing agreements, or evaluation criteria should reconfirm which of those activities continue under CAISI's national-security-focused mandate rather than assuming continuity of scope. Teams engaging with NIST on AI system security should route inquiries through CAISI's stated points of contact and treat its cybersecurity, biosecurity, and chemical-weapons risk evaluations as the primary lens through which the center now assesses commercial AI systems.