AISI has no statutory powers while the Frontier AI Bill slips indefinitely

AISI's model access rests on voluntary agreements with mostly US labs, and it cannot compel pre-deployment testing, information disclosure or corrective action. The promised binding regulation on the handful of companies developing the most powerful models has been delayed since 2024, first to fold in copyright, then displaced by the October 2025 regulation blueprint. As of mid-2026 no AI bill is before Parliament, and the Technology Secretary has signalled minimal new regulation. CLTR and GovAI have detailed statutory-footing proposals, and nothing has moved.

Voluntary access is discretionary and revocable, and it decays as commercial stakes rise. AISI's own trends report shows agent task complexity doubling roughly every eight months. The window in which the UK can set enforceable terms with labs it depends on is closing.

A Frontier AI Act putting AISI on statutory footing: compelled pre-deployment access above capability and compute thresholds, incident and safety-case disclosure duties, safe harbours for cooperating developers, and explicit reassignment of the societal-impacts remit dropped in the February 2025 rename.

// State-led: Instrument: a Frontier AI Act putting AISI on statutory footing.

Frontier-model testing rests on revocable voluntary access that decays as commercial stakes rise; detailed statutory proposals exist, no bill is before Parliament, and the window is closing.