Microsoft President Brad Smith is pressing for urgent AI regulation, arguing that consumer products such as milk and washing machines are subject to more oversight than the companies building AI. Speaking on a BBC podcast, he described AI as both a ‘weapon and a tool’ that puts global cybersecurity at risk, and said the ‘moment has arrived’ for global safety rules.

Smith argued that the UK, rather than the US or EU, is best placed to lead those rules. Britain’s AI Security Institute, launched in 2023, receives access to major models from US frontier labs before they are deployed and has become a leader in AI safety testing. That role is under pressure: President Donald Trump has warned against ‘globalist’ organizations, and last month he reportedly asked Anthropic and OpenAI to withhold new models from British testers. AISI confirmed on Monday that it can still access and test the latest models.

For Smith, the UK’s advantage is political. ‘In Washington, D.C., people don’t look at the U.K. and they don’t look at London the way they look at Brussels,’ he told the BBC. ‘That’s a strength.’ The comments follow calls from Anthropic‘s Dario Amodei and OpenAI‘s Sam Altman to slow AI development after several incidents where AI agents went rogue. Last month, Trump hosted executives from OpenAI, Anthropic, Nvidia, AMD, SpaceX, Meta, and Google at the White House; they signed a ‘morally binding’ document agreeing to work with ‘independent auditors’ to assess model safety and capabilities. Smith called it a ‘good step’ but said it stops short of the regulation that is needed, because voluntary self-regulation lets responsible companies comply while ‘the companies that are not as responsible’ remain the problem.

Smith wants legal obligations rather than pledges: a requirement to alert an organization when rogue AI agents breach its systems, appeared to support approval from outside evaluators before an AI product is released, and kill-switches to pause or slow AI if humans lose control. ‘Let’s speak calmly, maybe even softly, but firmly, and start to bring people together,’ he said. ‘I hope that’s the role we can play as a company. I hope that’s the role the U.K. can play as a country.’