# Microsoft’s Brad Smith: the UK, not the US or the EU, should lead on AI safety rules

URL: https://ai-pulse.aglaganova.com/blog/microsofts-brad-smith-the-uk-not-the-us-or-the-eu-should-lead-on-ai-safety-rules
Published: 2026-10-14
Author: Roman Aglaganov, Full-stack developer
Category: Policy
Region: Europe
Tags: regulation, safety

> Milk and washing machines face more checks than AI companies, Microsoft’s president says. He wants binding rules, including breach alerts and outside approval before release, and thinks Britain is best placed to start.

![Illustration: a tall black tower and a small white block joined by an arched bridge with a red keystone](https://ai-pulse.aglaganova.com/api/media/file/smith-1.png)

It is not every day that one of the world’s largest tech companies asks for tougher rules. On a BBC podcast, Microsoft president Brad Smith said the “moment has arrived” for global AI safety rules, and that the UK should lead them.

## What Smith wants

Smith called AI both “a weapon and a tool” that is putting the world’s cybersecurity at risk, and pointed out that products like milk and washing machines face more oversight than AI companies. His wish list, as reported by TechCrunch:

**Breach alerts:** a legal duty to tell an organisation if its systems have been breached by rogue AI agents.

**Outside approval:** independent evaluators signing off on AI products before release.

**Kill switches:** ways to pause or slow down AI if humans lose control of it.

He called last month’s “morally binding” White House pledge, in which AI companies agreed to work with independent auditors, a “good step”, but not enough. Voluntary rules, he said, only bind “the good companies”.

## Why the UK?

Britain’s AI Security Institute, founded in 2023, tests major models from US labs before they are deployed. That role has been under pressure: President Trump has warned against “globalist” organisations and reportedly asked Anthropic and OpenAI last month to withhold new models from British testers. The institute confirmed on 12 October that it can still access and test the latest models.

Smith’s argument 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 said. Rules from London might be heard in Washington, where EU rules are often resented.

## Why it matters

Smith’s ideas line up with what regulators elsewhere are now testing: two days later, the EU opened its first AI Act probes into agent incidents. A tech company asking for regulation also wants a say in its shape, so it is worth reading the details. But a breach-notification rule for AI agents would be simple, useful and hard to argue against.

## Sources

- [TechCrunch: Microsoft president says UK is best placed to drive AI regulation](https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/12/microsoft-president-says-uk-is-best-placed-to-drive-ai-regulation/)