AP: CAISSI staff were asked to informally report to a White House office

The Associated Press, in a report by Garance Burke carried by ABC News on 8 November 2026, says officials at the Commerce Department’s Center for Advancing Innovation and Standards for Super Intelligence, CAISSI, recently were asked to informally report to a White House office. AP attributes the account to two unnamed former government officials with knowledge of the ongoing conversations.

The same story says the center lacks a permanent leader and has stopped publishing its research. AP calls CAISSI an independent division of the Commerce Department, and says that until recently it was called the U.S. Center for AI Standards and Innovation.

What the wire says

The distinction is the request: AP says officials were asked to informally report, not that a formal reorganization took place. AP says its two former-official sources knew of ongoing conversations and requested anonymity to avoid repercussions for current staffers. The wire does not identify the White House office.

AP says the center is allocated $10 million a year, about one-eighth the annual budget of its counterpart in the United Kingdom. The wire does not name that UK body. In April, AP says, the division’s director was hired and then fired within days. His replacement lasted a few months before he resigned. The center has been without a permanent leader since, and the head of its parent institute doubles as acting director.

In August, AP says, Congress started asking why the center stopped making public its reports about how safely certain AI systems were performing. By then, AP says, OpenAI had asked policymakers to put more money and support behind the division.

The White House response

According to AP, the White House did not answer AP’s specific questions about CAISSI. In a statement, it said President Trump had formally established his Super Intelligence Force, that he has commissioned a report on risks from his Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, and that he will ensure “continued U.S. leadership on SI for the benefit of the American people.”

AP also reports that Trump empowered National Intelligence Director Jay Clayton to lead that force, which the president said would keep the U.S. dominant in AI development. The Justice Department’s Super Intelligence task force, which the department says is to work with the White House force, is a separate body. We covered that department memo in the DOJ task force post. This wire is about CAISSI staff, not that standup.

In September, AP says, Trump asked leading AI companies to undertake “tremendous self-policing” as part of a voluntary safety pact, and the administration has not said how it will monitor the companies’ implementation. AP recalls that under the previous administration, leading companies voluntarily agreed to promote “safe, secure, and transparent development” by sharing details with the Commerce division.

Caroline Siegel Singh, an AI and emerging technology program manager at the Federation of American Scientists, told AP that nonpartisan or bipartisan technical expertise could help these powerful institutions serve the public.

Why this matters

Builders who used CAISSI’s public safety-performance reports as an outside check have AP’s account that the center has stopped publishing them, and that Congress started asking why in August. Anyone updating an org chart should keep the wire’s wording: staff were asked to informally report, according to AP, citing two unnamed former officials. AP reports that the White House response cited the Super Intelligence Force, a science-advisers risk report and continued U.S. leadership; it did not answer AP’s specific CAISSI questions. The $10 million figure and the one-eighth comparison are AP’s, and the unnamed UK counterpart is not the October funding package for the AI Security Institute covered in the UK AI package post.